Anja Murray: Isn't it time we stopped killing badgers?
Badger All To A Of Mustelidae Is The The Badger Family Europe Almost In European Native Species
I once encountered a clan of badgers when out surveying in a remote patch of woodland — the kind of woods at the top of a steep slope where people rarely wander. It was early afternoon, so these badgers were defying their reputation of being shy and nocturnal. When badgers live in such out-of-the-way locations, they are more inclined to go out foraging in daylight, though normally they keep to the safety of darkness to venture from their underground homes.
There were adults and juveniles in the group, and I got to watch them using their long snouts to rummage in the rich woodland soil, I was crouching close, but downwind of the group, so they didn’t pick up my scent nor see me there. These are stunning-looking wild animals. Their long black and white striped snout is extraordinary, and their substantial mass was impressive too. I was surprised by the delicate way they would scrape and poke in the ground of the woodland, probably picking out bluebell roots, earthworms, grubs and leatherjackets to fill their tummies.
Such encounters with live badgers are rare, though these are a common mammal in our countryside. Ever since the retreat of ice sheets at the end of the last great Ice Age, badgers have been at home in Ireland, probably establishing themselves here long before humans did. Now that mammalian predators such as wolves and lynx are no longer here, badgers have an especially crucial role in regulating the populations of rats, mice and rabbits.
Once considered lucky, badger charms were worn as talismans by our ancient ancestors. Their leather was known to be woven into horses bridle’s to bring the horse and its rider good fortune.
Dozens of townlands across Ireland contain the Irish word for badger, ‘Broc’ in their name. Donnybrook in Cork city, the townland of Donnybrook in County Tipperary and Donnybrook in Dublin are all derived from Domhnach Broc. These place names attest to their long-standing presence in our landscape and culture.
Badgers are highly social animals. They live with their kin in extended family groups, often referred to as a clan. Each clan has both a male and female head — the dominant boar and the dominant sow. Each sett is typically occupied by the same clan for 100 years or more, with new chambers and entrances added from time to time, though always maintained in a clan and tidy state.
Setts are often sprawling subterranean labyrinths of tunnels and chambers. Certain chambers are specifically for sleeping in, carefully lined with old dried grasses, ferns and leaves as bedding to help keep them snug. Badgers are hygienic animals too, changing the bedding regularly and maintaining specially excavated latrines a few metres from the entrance to their sett.
Special nursery chambers are prepared for the arrival of new cubs, which are being born right now, around February. These are the first of our native mammals to give birth in spring. Generally, only one female per social group breeds, giving birth to two or three tiny, blind and hairless cubs in the safety of the padded subterranean nursery chamber. Over the next three months, mothers keep the tiny cubs close, snuggled in among the specially prepared bedding, nursing them on her milk.
Each clan has its own territory surrounding the set. They mark the perimeter of their territory with scent, warning other badgers to keep out, in addition to maintaining well-marked boundary paths. The group’s territory will include a variety of habitats, allowing for foraging at different times of year. Badgers are adaptable, territorial, omnivorous, and highly sociable. In many ways, these mammals are not unlike us humans.
Just had to share Badger Cub rescued in Northern Ireland courtesy of Dominic Dyer 🐾🐾❤️ #badgers #MrLumpyandFriends #Wildlife #foxes #stopthecull pic.twitter.com/fx4ZGqTPYh
— Mr Lumpy & Friends (@LumpyandFriends) March 1, 2019
But badgers have become sadly maligned in Ireland. Badger-baiting is exceptionally cruel and pointless, a blood sport that continues clandestinely to this day. There are reports from around the country of persistent illegal persecution involving snaring and disturbance to setts. Under the Wildlife Act, badgers are a protected species and badger baiting is illegal.
However, badgers are blamed for much harm, including the spread of bovine tuberculosis to cattle. Where TB exists in cattle, badgers feeding on earthworms in the same fields can pick up the disease from the dung of infected cattle. When they travel to other parts of their territory, they can spread the TB to other cattle. Bovine TB is a problem that needs to be addressed and even eliminated. But unfairly blaming badgers for a problem that was not of their making is not the answer.
For decades, the Irish State has lavished huge investment in culling badgers. It is a highly contentious and questionable response from both a scientific and ethical perspective. Opponents describe enormous cruelty in how badgers are snared and killed. It has been estimated that one in five badgers in Ireland has been culled over a 10-year period to 2006.
More recently, a vaccine has been developed which protects badgers from Bovine TB. Since 2018 the vaccine has been part of an overall national TB eradication programme. But the culling continues. Last year, more than 5,000 badgers were snared and shot across Ireland as part of the State culling programme. There is no closed season, so mothers are snared when their cubs are left helpless in the sett to perish. The Programme for Government contains a commitment to extend badger vaccination and to end badger culling, though the figures show that progress is slow.
I just found the more recent figure for 2020 which is 4,803 badgers killed while vaccination is increasing. But this number still way too high given the enormous flaws in what they call the 'wildlife programme'https://t.co/Qa8KQz5VyO https://t.co/lcI3eAJvd3
— Pádraic Fogarty (@whittledaway) November 23, 2021
We have learnt much from the Covid pandemic. The massive investment from taxpayers for badger culling could be directed instead toward better testing in cattle and rapid rollout of the vaccination of badgers against TB. Badgers have been part of the Irish heritage for thousands of years and they are beautiful, intelligent and benign animals. It is high time we show some much-needed compassion for these gorgeous creatures.