badgers

[mammalrecorder]

Hi Jeff

Baiters do occasionally leave dead badgers on the road to obliterate evidence but it is unusual in my experience. Animals which have been shot, snared or poisoned in the countryside are usually disposed of there. It is pretty risky to carry a badger some distance, presumably in a vehicle, and dump it by the roadside. Someone doing this would run the risk of being caught with a dead badger or badgers whilst on their way to dump them and possibly leave a fair amount of forensic evidence in their vehicle as well. Poisoning with drugs tends to be done at the sett and so badgers head back into it to die and are hard to recover. Gassing is also done at the sett and apart from the dificulty of digging to recover bodies there is the very real risk of the digger being poisoned when opening the sett and handling the bodies.

I would not totally discount dumping by baiters but simple RTA is most likely.

The best way to establish this is to tell the local Badger Group when and where you have seen RTAs. They will know or be able to establish if this is a regular badger route or if there is something suspicious going on.

Andy

[Burko]

I find it implausible that someone to go to the trouble of depositing dispatched badgers on the side of a road. Why would they run the risk of being caught when it would make far more sense to bury them out of sight?
Bit of a myth I reckon.

[JeffH]

Originally Posted by Burko

I find it implausible that someone to go to the trouble of depositing dispatched badgers on the side of a road. Why would they run the risk of being caught when it would make far more sense to bury them out of sight?
Bit of a myth I reckon.

Sorry Burko but I'm afraid it does go on - there have been a number of reports of carcasses bearing evidence of snaring, etc being found by the roadside. They're also frequently found on or beside railtracks, usually beneath roadbridges - strange that isn't it

But all these issues have been discussed on WAB before - see here
Dead Badgers

Jeff
(Schedule 1 Licence holder for Kingfishers, Barn Owls and Avocets)

[eeyore]

Yep i'm with jeff on this - ive personally retreived over 30 such from roads (including an incident in which i was stopped by the police with four dead badgers in the boot of my car - had some explaining to do that night )

Thing is you are right about baits that happen in the countryside - if its actually at the sett it will usually be crowned down afterwards to bury the evidence. However a lot of baits happen in more urban areas an involve sending diggers out to catch a badger or badgers (lactating sows are in especial demand) - and they are then baited at specially held "events" which are often in warehouses, lock up garages, barns and such ( in "baiting the trap" rspca inspector tony saunders tells of one distasteful incident in which a school caretaker held a bait in the school gym using the kids benches and mats etc to form the fighting ring)

in these cases it is then necessary to get rid of the evidence as leaving it on the premises is not feasible - and the quickest way to do that is to drop the carcases on the roads - considerably quicker than risking being caught by a farmer or keeper digging an illicit hole in the countryside

[mammalrecorder]

Hi Jeff and Eeyore

Thanks for your comments. I have had a look at the link you suggested Jeff and althought there is some acknowledgement there that badgers follow fairly fixed routes, especially when crossing roads much of the other comment does not agree with the accepted facts of badger behaviour and ecology. In particular the suggestion that 95% of badger corpses found at the roadside have been unlawfully killed is rather extreme!!

I have had similar numbers of dumped corpses to you Eeyore but that is over many years and is a minute percentage of the total RTA deathtoll (45,000-50,000 pa and rising). Looking back over the last twelve months I have only found two reported cases where there is a suggestion that the corpses might have been dumped by baiters.

I can see no reason to dump foxes at all as snaring them is legal and I feel that most people having gassed a sett are not going to undertake the very strenuous and dangerous activity of digging it to recover bodies to dump at the roadside.

However as we all have the welfare of wildlife at heart I would make a few suggestions that I think are worth following:

1) REPORT ALL DEAD BADGERS to your local badger group so that they can follow it up, see if they are on a badger trail or suspicious and inform the police if necessary.The badger group will respect your confidence and there is no reason why you should be needed as a witness if you are simply reporting a dead badger at the roadside.

2) Do not attempt personal investigations. For legal and safety reasons playing cops and baiters is best left to the cops (and the baiters). Removing badgers from the scene (for pm etc) should be done by or under the authority of the police otherwise the chain of evidence is destroyed and any prosecution undermined. (Possession or control of a dead badger or any part therof or anything derived therefrom is an offence).

3) REPORT ALL DEAD BADGERS. If it isn't reported then it cannot and will not be investigated.

Currently Operation Meles, an intelligence led targeted badger crime operation is running across the UK. This can only work if people feed information to it. Posting on here is useful for informing others but it does nothing to properly record and tackle badger crime. REPORT ALL DEAD BADGERS to your local badger group.They can be contacted via the Badger Trust @ The Badger Trust: Affiliated Groups.

There are many myths in the world of wildlife crime and sometimes they actually harm the creatures they are about. I have spent quite a lot of time over the years persuading road managers that dumping by baiters is very rare as the myth that it accounts for most badger road casualties is frequently quoted by them when they are approached by badger groups to install some form of mitigation.

If just everyone on this group reported the dead badgers that they saw by the roadside to their local badger group we could:

1) Find a lot of badger setts that we did not previously know about.

2) Push for mitigation at sites where RTAs are frequent.

3) Gain valuable intelligence as to the numbers of apparent RTAs that are realy victims of crime.

Perhaps we three could give it a try by encouraging anyone we see posting about badgers dead at the roadside to report them.

What do you think Jeff and Eeyore?

Andy

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by mammalrecorder

Hi Jeff and Eeyore

Thanks for your comments. I have had a look at the link you suggested Jeff and althought there is some acknowledgement there that badgers follow fairly fixed routes, especially when crossing roads much of the other comment does not agree with the accepted facts of badger behaviour and ecology. In particular the suggestion that 95% of badger corpses found at the roadside have been unlawfully killed is rather extreme!!

I have had similar numbers of dumped corpses to you Eeyore but that is over many years and is a minute percentage of the total RTA deathtoll (45,000-50,000 pa and rising). Looking back over the last twelve months I have only found two reported cases where there is a suggestion that the corpses might have been dumped by baiters.

I can see no reason to dump foxes at all as snaring them is legal and I feel that most people having gassed a sett are not going to undertake the very strenuous and dangerous activity of digging it to recover bodies to dump at the roadside.

However as we all have the welfare of wildlife at heart I would make a few suggestions that I think are worth following:

1) REPORT ALL DEAD BADGERS to your local badger group so that they can follow it up, see if they are on a badger trail or suspicious and inform the police if necessary.The badger group will respect your confidence and there is no reason why you should be needed as a witness if you are simply reporting a dead badger at the roadside.

2) Do not attempt personal investigations. For legal and safety reasons playing cops and baiters is best left to the cops (and the baiters). Removing badgers from the scene (for pm etc) should be done by or under the authority of the police otherwise the chain of evidence is destroyed and any prosecution undermined. (Possession or control of a dead badger or any part therof or anything derived therefrom is an offence).

3) REPORT ALL DEAD BADGERS. If it isn't reported then it cannot and will not be investigated.

Currently Operation Meles, an intelligence led targeted badger crime operation is running across the UK. This can only work if people feed information to it. Posting on here is useful for informing others but it does nothing to properly record and tackle badger crime. REPORT ALL DEAD BADGERS to your local badger group.They can be contacted via the Badger Trust @ The Badger Trust: Affiliated Groups.

There are many myths in the world of wildlife crime and sometimes they actually harm the creatures they are about. I have spent quite a lot of time over the years persuading road managers that dumping by baiters is very rare as the myth that it accounts for most badger road casualties is frequently quoted by them when they are approached by badger groups to install some form of mitigation.

If just everyone on this group reported the dead badgers that they saw by the roadside to their local badger group we could:

1) Find a lot of badger setts that we did not previously know about.

2) Push for mitigation at sites where RTAs are frequent.

3) Gain valuable intelligence as to the numbers of apparent RTAs that are realy victims of crime.

Perhaps we three could give it a try by encouraging anyone we see posting about badgers dead at the roadside to report them.

What do you think Jeff and Eeyore?

Andy

I agree with everything you've said andy - and i'd stress that while retreiving badgers i was working under the auspices of police and nfbg.

I'd also heartily agree about not playing cops and baiters - they can be very dangerous (often organised crime is involved with the baits as a lot of money changes hands in the gambling element) and are definitely best left to the proffesionals -while working as a warden/ranger - ive been shot at, had the windsceen of my 4x4 shot out twice, and been threatened with a blade on several ocasions over a 16 year career