Irish Badger persecution ,6000 snares laid a night!

national | animal rights | press release Saturday June 28, 2008 09:42 by Bernadette Barrett.Co-ordinator - Badgerwatch Ireland barrettb at gofree dot indigo dot ie 5, Tyrone Avnenue,lismore lawn, waterford. 00-353 ++(O) 51373876

Badger cruelty by department of agriculture snaring

The young sow struggled for hours in the snare until a local lady became aware of her plight. When she contacted Badgerwatch it was late Saturday afternoon. The snare had pulled so tight that it had become embedded in the animal’s lower abdomen and across the groin areas. Loose earth in the vicinity demonstrated her struggle for freedom.. To add to her misery, the snare had actually been set on a ditch. The local conservation ranger was notified but he did not attend.

OUTLAW THIS BARBARIC SNARE NOW

The Department of Agriculture’s badger trapper had not checked his snares that day. Indeed he did not arrive until lpm the following day - Sunday. A local vet was called to the scene but nothing could be done except to end the suffering. It could have been worse. She was not a lactating sow. Had she been, her orphaned cubs would have died of starvation somewhere underground, totally inaccessible. It would have been impossible to locate or indeed reach them. Badger trapping in this country, continues without respite, right through the badgers’ breeding season January-May.

In response to a Dail question raised by Dail Deputy Tony Gregory on behalf of the Irish Council Against Blood Sports (ICABS) 27th February 2007 Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan replied. “Most of the operational work involved is carried out by staff from the Farm Relief Service Co-op (FRS) who are closely supervised by staff from my Department. Obviously not close enough, Minister! For this, a “stopped restraint” ( lethal snare) of a type approved under Section 34(2) of the 1976 Wildlife Act is used.”.

The (former) Minister goes on “each FRS staff lays and monitors between 60-100 restraints (snares) and at peak times there may be up to 6,000 restraints on farmland on any given night”. “All restraints (snares) are checked daily (incorrect) to ensure trapped animals do not suffer any unavoidable trauma. Captured badgers are humanely euthanized”.

The common feature in almost every case over the years was that badgers get caught around the hind quarters as did our pictured sow. The more the animal struggles the tighter the wire becomes until it’s cut deep into the badger’s body causing horrendous damage to body tissues and much suffering to the animal. Without intervention our badger and God knows how many others could have suffered this trauma for forty eight hours awaiting the arrival of our good trapper from the Farm Relief Service!

The Department would have us believe that the badger lies relaxed and content in the snare while it awaits its fate. Badgerwatch has been contacted by a number of people in recent weeks who’ve provided evidence to the contrary. We have in turn, made the Dept of Agriculture and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, (NPWS) aware of such of such matters and to date Badgerwatch has to date received the standard acknowledgement from both. departments. We await a full response.Snaring began in 1985. Since 1995 approximately 53,000 badgers have been removed by trapping.

13,000 were also removed during the previous decade (1985-1994, inclusive) by the same method.
Included in the above figures were 5,933 trapped in 2007.

All figures quoted are from the Department of Agriculture official dataBadgerwatch (Ireland)

Co-ordinator: Bernadette Barrett

Tel: 00-353 ++(O) 51373876
Web: www.badgerwatch.ie