Badger-baiting plea by brave campaigner battered by thugs
HUNDREDS OF ANIMALS KILLED EVERY YEAR IN BARBARIC
A CAMPAIGNER viciously attacked with spades by badger-baiting thugs says the cruel abuse of the animals is still going on.
The horrific pursuit sees hundreds of the animals terrorised, hunted and killed every year.
In April last year, a volunteer was brutally attacked with spades by a gang of five thugs who were digging out a badger sett in Bolton. He was hospitalised, and left with numerous injuries which required plastic surgery.
Speaking to the M.E.N, volunteer Daniel said that a year on nothing has changed. “I have been attacked before by them, they left me for dead. The police didn’t have enough information, evidence, witnesses to proceed with the case so they dropped it,” he said.
Daniel said he got in touch with the Lancashire Badger Group and became a volunteer and then a member. Their activities include going on walks and looking for new badger setts, logging them and recording them so they know where they are.
He says the biggest problem they deal with is badger baiting. “We just have to keep reporting it to the police,” he said. “People can keep an eye out for those baiting badgers, looking for groups of people with torches and dogs and spades going into the woods at night. In south Manchester it’s rife, especially in places like Reddish Vale Park.”
Explaining the sadistic method of baiting, a crime officer for the Badger Trust said small dogs, like terriers, are sent into badger setts, and due the nature of a badger, there is a standoff and the dogs make their owners aware by barking. The badger will either come out on its own or be dragged out, before larger dogs, encouraged by their owners, embark on a cruel game of tug of war.
“They call it a tug of pig, with pig meaning a slang word for badger. It is essentially a tug of war, but there is no rope – the badger is the rope. They will pull it until it dies from the stress or exhaustion,” the officer said.
Chief Inspector Dave Henthorne, GMP’s lead for wildlife crime, said: “Badger baiting is not only extremely cruel, and causes suffering to both the badgers and dogs, but it is also against the law. As with any other crime, we will pursue and work to prosecute anyone found to be breaking the law.”
An RSPCA spokesperson said: “Anyone who suspects badger baiting should report the matter to the police or call the RSPCA on 0300 1234 999.”