CRIMES AGAINST BADGERS
CASES OF CRUEL AND ILLEGAL TREATMENT ARE ON THE RISE
THE number of crimes against badgers has risen for the second year in a row, with experts warning that the animals are being “demonised”. There are five criminal offences under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 to protect the animals and their setts from intentional cruelty.
These include taking, injuring, or killing badgers, causing them cruelty, interfering with badger setts, selling and possessing live badgers, or marking and ringing the animals.
People can be arrested for any of the above offences, charged with a crime, taken to court, and prosecuted.
The most recent Wildlife and Countryside report found that there were 625 persecutions against badgers in 2016.
That is up by more than a third from 465 the previous year.
Under the Act, a person can be sentenced for up to six months in prison or made to pay a fine of up to £5,000 following a conviction for the crime.
Latest government figures show that just six people were convicted for causing cruelty to badgers in 2017.
The Badger Trust said that these incidents included badger poisoning and badger baiting, which is the digging out and killing of badgers in their setts.
According to National Wildlife Crime Unit badger baiting involves dogs wearing radio collars being sent below ground into a badger sett.
Offenders track the radio signal from above. Once the dog has located the badger, the offenders dig down until they reach it.
The badger is then pulled from the sett and usually thrown to the dogs who kill it.
While people can be convicted of illegal badger culling, earlier this year the government announced a £50 badger bounty.
The bounty allow badgers to be culled legally, even in areas deemed at low risk of the spread of bovine TB (bTB).
The disease can infect and cause TB in animals including cows, deer, goats, cats and dogs.
Dominic Dyer, chief executive of the Badger Trust and British Wildlife Advocate Born Free Foundation, said: “Badgers have protection under the law but are one of the most persecuted wildlife species in Britain. “Every day large numbers of badgers are illegally killed by dog fighting gangs, hunt masters, gamekeepers, farmers and building developers from Cornwall to Cumbria. Fortoolongthisshy, nocturnal animal has been demonised and painted as a villain in the countryside. “If the government continues to kill tens of thousands of badgers alongside the huge level of illegal persecution of this species, we could see badgers disappear.”