British Conservative governmental badger killing costs millions

This video from Ireland says about itself:

Badger set free from cruel snare

23 Aug 2013

This is one of the estimated 97,000 badgers cruelly snared by Ireland’s Department of Agriculture as part of its failed TB eradication scheme. This badger was found and released – unlike the thousands of others who are left to struggle in the snares (overnight or for days) before a Department of Agriculture “snaring operative” returns to shoot the animal in the head. Please join the campaign against Ireland’s cruel badger snaring – click on “Campaigns” at www.banbloodsports.com.

Thanks to Lady Sue Kilbracken for the video footage.

Thanks to Tom Cusack / freemusicforvideos.com for the music.

ACTION ALERTS

Sign a Petition: ‘Stop badger culling in Ireland‘.

Please appeal to Agriculture Minister to show compassion and suspend the cruel badger snaring operation.

Minister Simon Coveney
Department of Agriculture
Agriculture House,
Kildare Street, Dublin 2.
Email: minister@agriculture.gov.ie
Tel: 01-607 2000 or LoCall 1890-200510.
Fax: 01-661 1013.

Please write to the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs and to the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Remind them that the Wildlife Act, for which they are responsible, lists the badger as a protected species. Demand that they stop licensing the snaring and killing of thousands of badgers as part of a cruel and discredited TB eradication scheme.

Minister Jimmy Deenihan
Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs
23 Kildare Street
Dublin 2

Email: ministers.office@ahg.gov.ie
cc: taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie
Tel: (01) 631 3804
Fax: (01) 661 1201

Constituency Details
18A The Square, Listowel, Co Kerry
Telephone: 068-57446
Fax: 068-57805

Director, Licensing Unit
National Parks and Wildlife Service
7 Ely Place, Dublin 2
Email: nature.conservation@environ.ie
Tel: 01-888 3214

Find out more about Ireland’s badgers here.

Background to this snaring incident…

Department ‘trespassed’ during “Cruel” badger cull

Cavan Post – June 2nd, 2008

The Department of Agriculture has been accused of tresspass and setting badger snares on Killegar Estate, in Carrigallen, without permission.

It is also claimed the snares were left unattended for days, resulting in extreme cruelty to the captured animals while also posing a health risk to people using the land.

Lady Sue Kilbracken, wife of the late John Godley, 3rd Baron Kilbracken, lives on the well-known estate. A neighbour, Johnny Fyfe, found 14 snares on Friday, April 18, and disarmed all he saw.

“I did not know the snares were there and was not asked permission by any Department of Agriculture official to set the snares,” an angry Lady Kilbracken told the Post.

“The Department was trespassing and it is evident that they are engaged in a covert operation to cull badgers and say very little about what they are doing to anyone in the given area in order to prevent objection and obstruction. In my case, they’ve been caught out and they are very red-faced about it,” she claimed.

When Lady Kilbracken contacted the Department she was informed the traps had been set four days previously on Monday, April 14, by a local department official.

It’s understood a herd of cattle close to the property had an outbreak of TB but this had been six months previously and the herd is now free of TB. Badgers are thought to be carriers of bovine tuberculosis (TB) and are routinely culled for the prevention of disease spread, a practice often criticised by animals rights groups.

According to law, after the snares are set they must be checked by midday of the following day. The badgers are shot immediately, bagged for post mortem analysis and the traps reset. However, Lady Sue told the Post that this appeared not to be the case with the Killegar snares.

“I don’t believe the snares were checked each day as required by law.”

Local Agricultural representative Oliver Heslin claimed he had visited her house on April 14, when the traps were set but that there was no one there at the time.

Mr Heslin said that the department must ask either the landowner or the land user whether they can set traps, and in his case he had spoken to the farmer who leases the land. However, snares were set on land not leased to the farmer.

A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture could not comment on the issue as facts related to the incident were not at hand.

Unlike the other badgers who are shot in the head, this badger was found and released from the snare.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Cull costs £1,300 per badger

Wednesday 15th January 2014

Police reveal shocking cost of coalition’s badger-killing spree

CON-DEM badger culling came under renewed attack yesterday after police said the bill had come to more than £2.4 million — or £1,300 a badger.

Gloucestershire police and crime commissioner Martin Surl said on Twitter that policing costs for the full length of the Gloucestershire cull were £1.7m.

And the cost in Somerset was £738,985, which would be reclaimed from the government, Avon and Somerset chief constable Nick Gargan tweeted.

Both culls had to be extended after not enough badgers were slaughtered in the six-week time frame.

The Association of Chief Police Officers originally estimated that policing costs would be around £500,000 a year for each four-year pilot.