Serviette sir, madame?

Perhaps the most bizarre report to come out in the press recently was a BVA press release -[link] expressing concern about badgers trapped in cages during a heatwave.

Now we are not sure whether any members of the British Veterinary Association are aware that the badger cull starts in the autumn, the heatwave was experienced months ago, and has long since dissipated into default drizzle in most areas of the South West. But we digress. Some worthy individuals may be hell bent on vaccinating them.

But we suspect neither the BVA members, nor those proposing vaccination have seen the effect of a cage trap on this animal, who is likely to fill the whole area with soil and bury itself before curling up and going to sleep. Where one wonders where would this BVA water source be placed? And would said badger like a serviette to protect his peanuts from exposure to soil? Or even water?

It really is the silly season.

 Meanwhile, on Twitter - [link]  Badgergate believe that we - just love that all encompassing phrase - should celebrate an over population of infectious omnivores in these islands as a success. They say:

We wonder why people aren't happy that England is the heartland of the European badger? We wonder why some only value something that's endangered. We wonder why on an island, impoverished in wildlife terms, why people don't celebrate badgers as a success?

If badgers weren't riddled with zoonotic tuberculosis, and spreading that bacterium far and wide while hoovering up every other small mammal, ground nesting bird or invertebrate in their path, perhaps those impoverished populations would stand half and chance, and 'we' would value their chosen species more.
Below a pic of hedgehog skins, left by badgers who peeled them like a large Jaffa orange, leaving just the prickles.

 And finally dear old Rosie, supporting the above tweet of course, but with a selectively defective memory of her past work, tweeted - [link] this:

Indeed. When I suggested that if the UK was to encourage African farmers to coexist with elephants it should also encourage its own farmers to coexist with badgers, I got some of the worst trolling I've experienced.

That Rosie, would possibly be because some of us heard your former boss, the diminutive John Bourne, echo Chris Cheeseman's comments when addressing cattle farmers who had enquired, quite politely, after hearing of the gross infectivity of these over abundant, over protected creatures, how they could protect their cattle from the infection they carried.

The answer was unequivocal. "You can't. You get rid of your cattle".