Quote:
Originally Posted by m1.carson  Hi,
After a trip to Devon, the amount of "road kills" we saw were quite amazing, on commenting on the subject in a local hostelry, the landlord said " did you notice how fat, round and perfectly formed the badgers looked after they've been hit by a vehicle".
It was then mentioned that the local farmers could be  culling the badgers, then chucking them over the hedges into the road.
No comment.
Max. |
baiters are also known to dump bodies by the roadside so where it is safe and practical to do so I always stop to examine putative badger roadkill to establish cause of death
true roadkill will nearly always have a broken neck, flailed chest or extensive internal bleeding (the broken neck occurs as the badger instinctively adopts a head down to towards threat stance when threatened)
those that have been culled will show signs of snaring (cuts arround neck) poisoning/gassing (froth on lips, on facial fur , and in mouth often yellow or green in colour), or gunshot wounds to the head
baiting victims will have dogbites to the face and forward body , lumps of flesh missing, and puncture wounds (the latter resulting from being thrust at with pitch forks and similar0, they will also ften have been hamstrung to use in "training" a fighting dog - there are some lovely people out there arent the.
If i find suspicious deaths I move the badger to the verge so it is not squashed by traffic , record the 6 figure map refference and use a digital camera to document its injuries - this info goes to the local badger group who act as liason with the police.
I would stress that if anyone else wants to follow my example you should remember that your own safety is paramount -be careful where you stop, get the car off the road if you can, be extra careful of traffic while examining carcasses, and wear disposable latex gloves when handling bodies both to protect you from disease and from any toxic agents which might be present in a culled corpse.
your local badger group contact details can be foound on the NFBG website
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