Barbaric practice that stains our countryside

ON A lovely Sunday afternoon just over a year ago wildlife artist Robert Fuller stumbled upon a scene that shocked him to the core. He and a friend, Ged Farmer, were walking along a footpath beside the River Derwent near Howsham.

They were looking forward to a quiet afternoon watching otters.

The first inclination they had that something was going on was when they heard dogs barking and yapping ahead of them.

“The commotion seemed to go on for a long time, so I knew something was up,” Robert recalls.

Then he heard the distinctive, high-pitched chittering sound of a badger in distress.

The Yorkshire Wolds-based artist, who has been observing, painting and photographing badgers for years, knew exactly what that sound meant.

Even so, he wasn’t prepared for what met his eyes as he forced his way through a nearby hedge to get a better look.

About 70 yards from where he stood, a group of men were watching as two huge, blood-soaked dogs shook a badger between them like a rag doll.

Smaller terriers raced around biting and yipping at the terrified beast as the men watched and laughingly urged their dogs on.

It was a scene almost medieval in its barbarity, Robert says. “This gang were so brazen about what they were doing. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon and this was happening next to a public footpath.”

Wading in to stop them wasn’t an option. Robert is a burly six foot two. But there were eight of these men, and they had guns and 13 dogs. Robert and Ged were just two men.

Instead, they did the next best thing. Ged called the police – and Robert whipped out his camera and started taking photographs.

As he watched, the badger that was being savaged gave up the fight. One of the men shot it dead.

That was when the gang spotted Robert and his camera. It was a pretty hairy moment, he admits. “I was up against the river and so, yeah, I thought: ‘Oh dear, I had better get going now’.”

Fortunately, the gang members had the same idea. They made an attempt to hide the evidence of what they had been doing, then fled – only to be stopped by the police as they drove away.

“The police were there within ten or 15 minutes,” says Robert gratefully.

The scene the badger baiters left behind them was horrific. The body of the badger Robert had seen being tortured by dogs was lying in a hedge. Strewn across the field were three tiny pink bodies – badger foetuses that had been torn from the womb of a pregnant sow.

The body of that dead sow was soon found by Jean Thorpe, of Ryedale Rehab, which rescues and treats injured animals.

Jean was quickly called to the scene, and found an area of ground that had been dug over and then covered by turf. When she opened the hole, she found the disembowelled body of the mother badger inside.

The photographs Robert took that day were horrific: far too upsetting to reproduce here. But they played a vital part in the subsequent trial of the men responsible for this act of ferocity.

Following a two-week trial at Scarborough Magistrates’ Court in December, six men and a 17-year-old youth were found guilty of hunting and killing badgers – an offence under the Protection of Badgers Act.

Four of the men – three of whom were from York and one from Pickering – were subsequently each jailed for 16 weeks.

Two other men, both from York, who had pleaded guilty to the charges, were each given a 12-week prison sentence suspended for a year. The 17-year-old was given a youth rehabilitation order and told to attend training sessions run by the RSPCA.

The case – which was reported around the world – brought home the fact that badger baiting is still alive and kicking in Yorkshire, even though it was outlawed in Victorian times.

Afterwards the judge, Christina Harrison, made a point of singling Robert Fuller out for praise for his part in bringing the men to justice.

Geoff Edmond, the RSPCA’s national wildlife co-ordinator, says that praise was fully deserved.

“The significance of what Robert Fuller did cannot be underestimated,” he said.

“I’ve been a wildlife officer for 20 years and it was the worst, most horrific and barbaric case I have seen.”

But the sad truth is, various forms of badger persecution – including shooting, digging, snaring and gassing, as well as baiting for sport – are probably more common than we’d like to think.

Data on badger persecution has only recently begun to be collected in detail, says Ian Hutchison, the retired Scottish police officer who now heads up Operation Meles – the UK-wide, intelligence-led police operation which aims to gather evidence of such persecution.

The information is collated by the National Wildlife Crime Unit. Its figures show that in 2009/10, a total of 842 incidents involving badgers were reported across the country. Nineteen of these were in North Yorkshire, a further 17 in Humberside.

In the eight months between September 2010 and May 2011, meanwhile, a total of 419 ‘badger persecution’ incidents were reported across the country; 12 of them in North Yorkshire and ten in Humberside. These figures only tell a part of the story, believes Mr Hutchison.

“We know that there is more than that going on out there,” he says.

Jean Thorpe agrees. She is personally aware of nine incidents of badger persecution in 2011 alone, mainly in the Ryedale area.

They included setts being illegally dug up; poisoning; and snaring. She herself rescued one badger that had been caught in a snare.

“It had struggled and struggled and struggled, and the snare had bit into the flesh,” she says.

She believes that if we are to be able to build up a full picture of what is going on, it is vital that people report any suspicious signs of badger persecution that they might come across while out and about in the countryside. It might be a dead badger you find, or a snare or signs of a badger sett that has been tampered with.

“If you see anything, report it,” Jean says. “Don’t wait two or three days: ring the police or the RSPCA. If it is nothing, it doesn’t matter; no harm has been done.

“But we need people to tell us. You don’t have to get involved in the court case: just let us know.”

That is a sentiment echoed by Sergeant Paul Stephenson, of Malton Safer Neighbourhood Team, the policeman who led the investigation which resulted in the conviction of the six men and a youth for animal cruelty.

He, too, praises Robert Fuller for raising the profile of the barbaric crime of badger baiting.

“I urge anyone else who can help identify criminals committing this type of offence to report them to the police immediately,” he says.

• To report incidents of badger persecution or other animal cruelty to the police, phone 101. You can also phone the RSPCA on 0300 1234999.

‘It’s all about being macho, for cheap thrills’

Robert Fuller is a countryman through and through, grew up in the Yorkshire Wolds.

He finds it hard to understand the mindset of people who would want to torture badgers for ‘sport’.

“I cannot understand why anyone would derive any pleasure from it,” he says. “It is completely abhorrent, unnecessary and unbelievably cruel.

“It makes me feel sick to think that this is going on mainly undetected in our precious countryside.”

Going on it most certainly is, however.

Unfortunately, says Robert, badger setts are all too easy to trace, with their numerous holes and large spoil heaps.

Many remain in the same place for hundreds of years, he says, making them particularly vulnerable.

“The Domesday Book mentions several that are still in use today.”

Baiters generally send a terrier fitted with a ‘locator’ collar down setts. The dogs corner the badgers in a sleeping chamber.

The men above sweep the ground with a transmitter, find where the dog has settled, then dig down to find the badger.

“Traditionally, they get the badger out of the hole using rods with a twisted end like a long corkscrew, which is twisted through the badger’s skin so they can pull them out,” Robert says.

“They then use large tongs to grip the badger’s neck.”

Increasingly these days, baiters will also use powerful bull lurchers to drag badgers out of a freshly dug hole.

“In some cases they cage or sack the badgers and take them away to be baited at a later date,” Robert says.

“In the case I witnessed the badgers were thrown to the dogs there and then to be worried to death by a pair of bull lurchers.”

Bull lurchers, he says, are mixed breed dogs made up of lurcher or greyhound crossed with pit bull, mastiff or bull terrier.

They are specifically bred for badger baiting and ‘lamping’ – chasing wild animals such as deer, fox and hares at night, with the aid of a torch or lamp.

“They are like greyhounds on steroids,” Robert says. “They have the speed of a running dog and the power and aggression of a pit bull.”

As to the badger baiting gangs themselves – they are more often townies than country people, Robert says.

“It is all about being macho: done for cheap thrills and adrenaline rush.

“The badger is the toughest animal we have in the UK, and badger baiters will brag about their dogs being able to kill them.”

Not everyone in the countryside likes badgers, he admits, partly because of the spread of bovine TB in cattle.

“But even if people in the countryside might want to kill badgers sometimes, they don’t tend to torture them like this.”