Rob Macklin

🚨 ENGLAND’S WAR ON BADGERS FINALLY ENDS AFTER YEARS OF MASS CULLING England’s long and bitter war against the badger is finally drawing to a close. After more than a decade of mass culling operations which saw hundreds of thousands of native animals shot across the countryside, the Government has confirmed it will not renew annual authorisations for the final remaining badger cull licence in Cumbria. The licence, granted in 2024, formally runs until 2028 but requires yearly approval from Natural England — approval which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says will now be withheld. For many conservationists, it marks the symbolic end of one of the most divisive wildlife control policies in modern British history. More than 270,000 cattle have been slaughtered because of bovine tuberculosis over the last decade, according to government figures, with successive administrations insisting badgers formed part of the disease transmission chain. The response transformed large areas of rural England into night-time killing zones as contractors trapped and shot one of Britain’s most culturally iconic wild animals. Sett-lined woods, ancient hedgerows and pasture edges became frontlines in a policy critics long argued was driven more by politics and optics than ecology. Badger Trust welcomed the announcement, describing it as “good news for badgers” after years of campaigning against the cull. Chief executive Nigel Palmer said: “You can't solve a disease in one animal by killing another animal.” He argued the focus should always have been on cattle-based controls rather than widescale destruction of wildlife. “Until they address the problem in cattle, which is where the problem lies, they're not going to get on top of it,” he said. The Government says it now intends to move towards badger vaccination programmes instead, while continuing work on a viable cattle vaccine and improved testing systems. Farming groups remain deeply concerned. National Farmers' Union president Tom Bradshaw warned that ending wildlife controls before cattle vaccination systems are fully operational could leave “gaping holes” in the country’s TB strategy. He said bovine TB continued to devastate farming families emotionally and financially and called for greater urgency and investment in eradication efforts. Cumbria Wildlife Trust chief executive Steve Trotter said rural communities had endured enormous suffering because of bovine TB but backed a transition toward vaccination rather than culling. Across much of Britain, the badger occupies a place far beyond agricultural policy. Ancient, nocturnal and stubbornly tied to the same landscapes for generations, the species has become woven into the identity of the countryside itself — a surviving fragment of older Britain still moving through hedgerows, beechwoods and hill country long after so much else has vanished beneath roads, concrete and industrial farming. Opponents of the cull argued the policy reflected a broader habit of treating native wildlife as expendable whenever it collides with economic pressure. Hunt Saboteurs Association chairman Simon Russell described the cull as an environmental “disaster”. “We need to step away from this attitude that as soon as we have a problem with any form of wildlife the answer is to kill it,” he said. Defra says a new bovine TB control strategy will be announced shortly. For now, however, the guns are finally beginning to fall silent in England’s ancient badger woods.

Did anyone know this was about to happen?? They are going to kill off Dartmoor Hill Ponies? This is for what These wild ponies have always been free in Dartmoor forever! This is why we must protect them because they probably want to build on this land for foreigners to be housed

Here is the latest update on the fight to save Brislington Meadows ⬇️