Badger baiting
holidays scandal
Northern Echo - 13th January 2000
By Ian Lamming
BADGER baiting
holidays are being organised for the sadistic fans of the illegal "sport",
The Northern Echo can reveal.
Hand-reared badgers are also being
peddled on the Internet in an underworld conspiracy said to be as
organised as paedophile rings.
Last night, the police and the RSPCA
appealed for help in infiltrating the secret world of the baiters who
inflict terrible pain and suffering on a protected species.
The
Northern Echo has already launched the Wild Watch campaign, in conjunction
with the region's police and the RSPCA, to bring the culprits to
justice.
And yesterday, the investigation revealed that Northerners are
travelling to Wales and the Irish Republic on badger baiting holidays,
with baiters making return visits to the North-East and North
Yorkshire.
Wear and Tees RSPCA inspector Gavin Butterfield said:
"Most people go on holiday to lie on a beach, these lads torture animals.
It is something we are aware of. These holidays, or whatever you might
term them, are in southern Ireland and Wales."
Durham Police
wildlife liaison officer Sgt Eddie Bell is investigating the baiting
holidays.
"There are a lot of people involved," he said. "It's a very
very close knit system with its own publication, its own clubs. I am sure
people travel and come up here for organised baiting. It's sick."
Baiters, thought to total 5,000 nationally, have begun to use
coded messages on the Internet to communicate.
The Northern Echo
discovered one site yesterday which advertises "quality badgers for sale .
. .We breed 'em, You bait 'em".
Available for "death by baiting", it
boasts of rearing badgers on a healthy diet of milk and "shlop".
Giving
a phone number in the Irish Republic, the site says: "Home to the finest
badgers. We raise them ready for the road." Contacted by The Northern
Echo, a man claimed it was a wrong number.
Badger baiting was outlawed in the 1930s and the animal is
protected under the Badgers Act 1992. But it remains a cruel relic of a
bygone age, with fans prepared to risk six months in prison and fines of
up to £5,000 for even interfering with a sett.
A spokesman for the
National Criminal Intelligence Service said it was aware of badger
baiting, but had not built up any intelligence on those believed to be
involved. "There is no database of baiters," she said.
Sgt Bell
said a week never went by without a sett being interfered with somewhere
in the region, but the illegal groups had proved impossible to
infiltrate.
Evidence of badger baiting had been discovered at Chopwell,
near Gateshead, and Richmond and Picton in North Yorkshire.
A
spokeswoman for the Dale and Vale Badger Protection Group said: "It's far
more widespread than anyone realises. They use some setts as a larder.
They'll take one badger then come back later for another. You have
families who have been in this for generations, they will take their kids
along. I have a video which shows a boy who must be ten-years-old."
She said there was a sophisticated underground network, which included
scouts who spotted the setts; diggers, who caught the badgers; and people
who held them until it was time for the fight.
There were also people
who specialised in breeding the fighting dogs, crossing lurchers with pit
bulls.
Then there were those who attended badger
baiting for the thrill, others for the betting, and even unscrupulous vets
who were prepared to treat injured dogs without notifying the
authorities.
Sgt Bell said: "It's just like paedophiles. It's hard
to comprehend what motivates them. Baiting is tightly-knit and difficult
to infiltrate."
Inspector Butterfield added: "That is why we need to appeal
to the public. There will be wives, girlfriends, relatives, who know what
is happening. If we could just get them to pick up the phone and give us a
little bit of information."
For more information click this link:
Michael Clark
book |
|
This is a superb book about badgers by Michael
Clark. His immense knowledge of badgers really shines through. Click here to buy:
2017 edition
or
2010 edition
|
|