CRUELTY OF THE BADGER SLAUGHTER
EXCLUSIVE: HORROR REVEALED Campaigners’ fury over cull as animal is left to bleed to death in trap
A TRAPPED badger lies in a pool of blood after suffering a slow, agonising death.
Anti-cull activists claimed its shooting was botched and strict rules were broken.
Campaigner Brian May said: “I find these pictures very painful.”
ANIMAL welfare campaigners today claim caged trapping “cannot be done humanely” as harrowing images emerged of a badger left to bleed to death.
The large adult was caught at night as it hunted for food.
Activists found it at 1.20pm the following day and claimed its body was still warm to the touch.
The manner of its death and the failure to quickly remove the corpse for disposal appears to breach strict rules.
Queen guitarist and campaigner Brian May said: “I’m sure I’m not alone in finding these pictures very painful.
“It’s pitiful to see these magnificent creatures being destroyed.”
The dead badger was found in Devon last week.
Activists claim its bloodied fur and warm body suggest it died long after daybreak and the person who shot it failed to kill it.
A best practice guide for the cull, issued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, states: “Cage traps set to catch must be checked and any badgers caught must be dealt with as soon as practicable after dawn the following day.” It also says cull operators are legally obliged “not to cause unnecessary suffering to any animal under the control of man – this includes a wild animal in a trap”.
As soon as a badger is shot, its corpse has to be put in two thick plastic bags for Defra to dispose of, normally by incineration.
Last week the Government issued licences to extend the cull at 11 new areas in Devon, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset and Cheshire. It aims to prevent bovine TB.
But Brian May said: “The case for killing wildlife as part of a strategy for cleaning up herds of cattle is incredibly weak, and a huge doubt hangs over this policy. “Yet this government ploughs ahead as if they are blindfolded.
“This is a tragic waste of innocent lives, which will not help farmers or cattle, and it’s a criminal waste of taxpayers’ money.” Jay Tiernan, of Stop The Cull, said of the photo: “This makes a farce of the idea it is being done to stop disease because protocols are being ignored across the cull zones.
“We are seeing evidence now that caged trapping cannot be done humanely. The people undertaking the cull are amateurs and have scant regard for animal welfare.”
The Badger Trust said more than 30,000 of the nocturnal animals could be killed in the next six weeks.
CULLING badgers is hugely controversial and evidence of alleged cruelty, which we publish today in the public interest, will increase concerns, with animal welfare groups claiming guidelines were flouted.
The accusation that an animal was left in a cage to die in agony is worrying, particularly when some experts already challenge the assertion that killing badgers is the best way of combating the spread of TB in cattle.
Pausing, rather than extending, the extermination programme to allow all the evidence, new and old, to be reassessed will strike many people as a reasonable way forward.
Killing our beautiful badgers needlessly and callously would not only breach the rules – it would be the terrible destruction of one of our countryside’s most popular creatures.