Dear all,

I am delighted to inform you that in recent days, with some offline donations we have finally reached the target for the current legal challenge. There are a few donations still promised and  not yet arrived, so please continue to send in any that are in progress, as we always find there is work to be done after the hearing and other challenges are also under active consideration.

Thank you for your part in getting us there on time. It is only with the generous financial support of those who really care about badgers that this has been possible, and we can only hope for a positive outcome in the weeks ahead.

We will keep updating news on progress via the badger crowd web pages https://thebadgercrowd.org/

Kind regards, Tom

Tom Langton

Dear all,

As we head towards the end of our appeal for funding and the court date nears, I am writing one last time to thank you for your support and generosity. Thanks are also due to those who have donated via Badger Trust-Sussex including recently Calderdale, East Surrey and South Yorkshire Badger Groups, Roger Weeks, and Badger Trust Sussex themselves,. We are now closing in on our target. Thank you and please keep it coming and if you can find others to chip-in.

This tragic photo reminds us that over the last four weeks Natural England has authorised the shooting of adult badgers but also their newly weaned or nearly weaned cubs. Cubs such as the one shown here, dead at five months old are mostly completely healthy and ready to begin life. They are shot in a way opposed by the British Veterinary Association. This is carried out on the premise that doing so somehow contributes to stopping the spread of bTB in cattle herds which is unproven. Current peer-reviewed evidence shows badger culling has been futile. BTB in cattle is caused by the regular movement of diseased cattle and despite the knowledge that the SICCT test to detect bTB in cows is imperfect and will slow, but not stop the disease spreading.

The Court of Appeal case hearing coming up at the end of this month. It  highlights the lack of regard the government has had towards badgers and the potential detrimental ecological effects of killing them on other species and habitats. This is something government funded researchers  have stated and restated can cause change to wildlife communities. We are facing ten more cull areas being authorised in September of this year in addition to the newly authorised 'supplementary culls' bringing more pointless killing of healthy badgers and disturbance to our last remaining precious ecosystems.

We must stop this unscientific and wicked waste of life and resources, so if you can please find a way to help the money come in to complete this appeal over the next two week, the Badger Crowd, to which you belong, and I and will be truly grateful.

Thank you, Tom

We are the Badger Crowd. We stand up for Badgers.

Hi again everyone,

I just wanted to update all you wonderful supporters on where to locate a new guest blog by Dominic Woodfield  who has been an expert on Environmental Impact Assessment and Habitats Regulations Assessment in the badger cull eco-impacts legal cases since 2017. He is an experienced wildlife surveyor, and with habitat restoration and creation and in the needs of protected fauna and flora. This blog has been kindly hosted by Mark Avery on his personal blog, here:.

https://markavery.info/2022/06/18/guest-blog-how-a-suppressed-bto-report-became-published-as-a-joint-bto-ne-study-by-dominic-woodfield/

Mark is a vital part of Wild Justice and their environmental projects and cases are well worth supporting via their website and you can sign up to their online newsletter.

The Court of Appeal case at the end of July to which Dominic’s article relates, concerns the big picture responsibilities of government bodies to ‘have regard’ to biodiversity under the 2006 NERC Act. The upcoming legal case is a test of the extent to which efforts to safeguard biodiversity should be made in the run up to big policy decisions that impact listed wildlife priority species and habitats.

The case is about badger culling but it is actually also about how government bodies at the highest level, go about addressing protection of all NERC Act species and habitats.

Thanks are due to Mark Avery for his interest in the British Trust for Ornithology report described by Dominic and awareness of the concerning secrecy and its winkling out. Further, to Ruth Tingay and Chris Packham also of Wild Justice for supporting this and previous crowd funding efforts, to help see this legal case through the court process.

Thank you all for donating in recent weeks. Please, if you can help now to push the funding along this evening and in the coming days towards our final target by the middle of July.

Best wishes, Tom Langton  

Dear badger friends,

Thanks to the huge effort in recent days we are close to the ‘stretch’ target after a little over four weeks since the start of the appeal. There have been 585 pledges to this Crowd Justice appeal that have made this possible and without those gifts, none of this work would be possible.

Our  initial target of £9,000 was reached last week and this was a milestone needed to make sure that obtaining the case funding was viable. Now we need to reach the full amount of £22,000 in order to make sure that all of the court costs, necessary legal work and representations can be made by our expert legal team.

To give us a bit more time, an extension of 30 days will shortly appear, this ending in the middle of July, a couple of weeks before the Court of Appeal  hearing in London.

If you would like more information on badger culls, this legal case on the eco-impacts of removing badgers from ecosystems, there is commentary on the Badger Crowd website Home page, Blogs and Media pages https://thebadgercrowd.org/    

This includes recent failing attempts by the government to publicly deny peer-reviewed research in Veterinary Record, that shows badger culling has not worked in the High Risk Area culls since 2013.

https://thebadgercrowd.org/defra-in-denial       

Thank you to those who join the ranks of the Badger Crowd, and those who simply wish us well. Thank you for helping to oppose the cruel, unscientific, wasteful, divisive  and unwanted persecution of badgers using public finance. 

If you can find a way to help us to tip get the fund across the line over the next few days it will help give badgers and other animals and plants where they live the voice they really need. 

With kind regards and good wishes,

Tom Langton. 

We are the Badger Crowd. We fight for badgers.

Hi everyone,

I’m writing to ask if all parts of the Badger Crowd can help us double down on fundraising in the days ahead to try to reach the target we set back in May. A fair bit to do with 11 days remaining .

It’s been a very busy time recently, preparing for the legal case and on matters relating to Defra’s surprising refusal to accept published veterinary science by myself, Mark Jones and Iain McGill..

This week we even had a parliamentary question from Caroline Lucas answered regarding Defra’s reluctance to accept extensively peer-reviewed science:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-05-24/7961

The Sun and the Spectator wrote about it too: Bodgers!

https://twitter.com/euro_badger/status/1532735893265690627/photo/1            

https://twitter.com/domdyer70/status/1532820993537937413?t=HF5WhmepDQm1taxS7XCRXg&s=03  

And Mark Jones from Born Free wrote a detailed summary in WellBeing magazine

https://wellbeingintl.org/the-uk-badger-cull-lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/?utm_source=wbn&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wbn-vol4-5-email-badger&utm_source=WellBeing+International+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1b92e13621-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_20220603_WBN_vol4-5&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_620c7bb37e-1b92e13621-134191775

So a lot of effort is going in to expose the truth behind the cruel,  expensive unscientific, unethical failed  badger culls in England. And we need to further expose the lack of consideration of the impact of badger culling on the environment.  To highlight how government behaviour towards species management has been a major driver to the lack of wildlife recovery and biodiversity crisis in England.

Best wishes and thanks again. 

We are the Badger Crowd. We stand up and fight for badgers. 

Tom

PS Please excuse cross-posting because I am emailing all those who have donated to various funds over the last few years. So  you may get this message more than once but I cannot think of a way around that!

Just to let you know that we have had a significant offline donation and after three days, we are not far off the half way mark to £9,000, which is  apparently where we need to be to reach our target in late June. 

However, times are very hard and people have so many worthy causes to give to. We need to keep pushing out this appeal to those who are not aware of the broader implications of this legal case. It seeks justice not only for badgers but in relation to the protections afforded to the 2006 NERC Act species and habitats when major developments and interventions come along to potentially harm their survival. 

So please pass the word widely to all wildlife interest groups about this case and guide them to the site. All amounts add up, no matter how small. 

We were reminded about he secret ways in which Natural England behave by a diligent researcher who recently discovered documents by Natural England on how to encourage badger culling on National  Nature Reserves. Hard to believe -see below. The signing up guidance however remains secret, it seems.

NE think keeping some kind of rough record of who shoots predators around cull areas is enough to detect impacts on protected species caused by badger removal. We don't. There is so much wrong with government's approach to the failed badger culling policy. We must fight back to give wildlife  a voice and chance for survival.

Thanks again for all your generosity and  for caring.