I've written recently about the relentless antagonism towards Badgers in the immediate area around where I live.
One neighbour has been snaring them, and others have been out hunting them with dogs. Predictably, quite a few have been caught, but, as the hunting season is now closed, they have a temporary reprieve.
So, I was very pleased to see, yesterday morning, that a new Badger Set is in the process of being excavated. This has appeared over the last couple of days, and I imagine will grow in size over the next few months (and hopefully, years). Maybe it's being prepared for a new brood of cubs.
I do understand the farmers' concerns about wild animals; I've suffered at the hands of Foxes and Deer myself. But we need to share this planet with all creatures, however annoying they might be at times.
No-one wants to slaughter animals to the extent of extinction, so the maxim must be 'moderation in all things'. Let's celebrate diversity, and be grateful that such a wide variety of wildlife exists all around us.
May I take this opportunity to welcome Mr Brock and family to his new home! Happy digging!
That' so sweet of you, Cro. Let's hear it for the under dog. Long live the badgers.
ReplyDeleteWe have badgers visiting the garden and doing damage - digging up the grass - tipping pots over and making latrines in the borders - but it is something we just put up with as I feel that they were probably here before we were - live and let live is my motto.
ReplyDeleteIt's the digging that's the worst; huge holes filled with poo! Still, gotta love em.
DeleteFirst time I saw a badger in daylight was a great experience, he lumbered out of a hedgerow like a clumsy short-legged dog trying to run, stopped, looked at me, and then disappeared into the opposite hedgerow.
ReplyDeleteThere's a vast amount of hysteria about badgers, it's 99% nonsense. Never understood why in England they're protected to the extent of £10,000 fines for disturbing them or even disturbing a sett - and yet H.M.Govt cheerfully gasses and strangles them by the thousand if a single milk cow so much as coughs.
I like your live and let live attitude to badgers. I love to see wild life roaming free and there seems to be little enough of it these days. I understand that farmers worry but as I understand it the is some contention about the cattle/badger problem.
ReplyDeleteHere in Australia we have to cull the kangaroos or we would be completely over run by them and they do a huge amount of damage to crops and fences but it is an awful job. I'm glad it's not me who has to do it.
Cheers
.
My daughter has them in her garden (in QLD). I've suggested she has one occasionally for the freezer!
DeleteWhat a coincidence. My wife (who is in Oz at the moment) has just posted a picture of a Roo in my daughter's garden!!!
DeleteOn her Facebook page.
DeleteYou are just wonderful!
ReplyDeleteCheers Cro...great sentiment.
ReplyDeleteI feel that was about my ground hog too, Cro, that has lived there many years. Many neighbors have told us to "get rid of him" but live and let live...that's my motto!
ReplyDeleteIt's been so long since I caught up on my reading, and reading yours made me smile. Your post hit home for me. We had moles in our back yard for a very long time and I frankly did not care. They disappeared for a time, and did not know why until I asked the yardcare person I had at the time. (My husband had left and I needed help.) He had poisoned them all and I fired him on the spot.
ReplyDeleteThe next round of people used no poisons, but the moles never returned.
I'm glad a family is finding refuge.
Amen to that Cro.
ReplyDeleteAs someone for whom the closest I have ever got to a badger is The Wind in the Willows and listening to the bovine TB debate on The Archers, I have very mixed feelings about them.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, I want them to ramble around at night, snuffling away as they dig for grubs and worms and bugs (yayyy, bugs!) but they do carry bovine TB and until we have a vaccine for both cattle and badgers I suspect the badgers are always going to come off worse. This is my sad face :(
We have fishers here, that are like badgers. They used to be trapped for their pelts and were extirpated in some locales. They are carnivores and more than one cat has become supper for them. We also have martens and minks that are wild. Most do not bother coming close to the house, and although all of them hunt both night and day, it's usually at night where i hear the death shrieks of their quarry. I try to make sure the cats are inside at night.
ReplyDeleteWe have raccoons, too, and a sweet little skunk who nightly makes her way over to where i scatter birdseed on the ground for the groundfeeding birds.
The raccoons and skunk are not thrilled with me when i am outside at night, but i make a lot of noise to warn them i'm there, and i give them time to scurry away if that's what the wish to do. They aren't bothered by JoJo who often likes to go out and watch them eat, although i think she got a bit too close the other night, as i heard the raccoon snarl, and then Jo seemed very eager to come back inside.
I agree with the live and let live. If the animals appeared rabid, then i think it best to destroy them, but i've no livestock to worry about.
megan
Great that you feel that way Cro,it will always be divided different place different animals but the same problem, I always am in awe of the duck hunts I see on Tv what is that all about! now the next large town from us is overun by Fruit bats, they have destroyed a park of beautiful trees,poo everywhere and the noise is just non stop now the town is divided over what to do and the law wins they are not to be touched.
ReplyDeleteWe have homo sapiens here. They could do with culling but no one is ever game to do it. They dig holes and poo in them and they kill any animal that competes with them. They even kill things that try to kill them! (Sharks, crocodiles etc). Bloody pests.
ReplyDeleteGo the badgers, I say. I like that they have a champion in you, Cro.