Badgers versus hedgehogs

devon deer stalker

Well-Known Member
This has really made by blood boil.

When i lived in the city we would always see hedgehogs around, in fact the best place today to see a hedgehog is in the city.
So we moved out to my village over 20 years ago and it was a case of spot the hedgehog, they just weren't around, so although i realise they are under threat from several areas i knew the main reason was badgers.
But, over the past few months we noticed the odd one turning up, leaving their little tell tale signs of droppings around and it was great to see one again.
But today i noticed some flies around the side of my house, and there it was, turned inside out, typical of the badger and the sodding thing even went for a crap to rub things in!

 
The media are very quick to blame farmers, pesticides, and modern farming methods for the decline of all sorts of other creatures. Whilst there probably has been some impact, the increase in numbers of foxes, badgers, corvids and domestic cats must surely have had a significant impact, a fact that is almost always conveniently ignored!

In the 100 years or so before WW1 most if not all of the big estates had large numbers of gamekeepers who were dedicated to the elimination of corvids, stoats, weasels, raptors and badgers, this has to have had an impact on the numbers of the prey species, and this period I believe is when we first started documenting bird numbers, so perhaps they were at an artificial high, making todays low numbers of songbirds, seem even lower.
 
+1 Just as with the raptures where are all the song birds. Ok keep a happy medium but the protection they get does nothing for the song birds. I live in the country and out every day 3 times with my dogs and cannot tell you the last time I saw a sky lark, Mistle Thrush and many more.At what point must something be done?
 
I'm not sure what the programme was but the other night there was a piece on hedgehogs and their decline. It was laid at the door of pretty well everything but not a mention of badgers. Likewise bumble bees nests are being dug out on a regular basis and yet again no one blames the badgers. Just too many of the blasted things.
 
I'm not sure what the programme was but the other night there was a piece on hedgehogs and their decline. It was laid at the door of pretty well everything but not a mention of badgers. Likewise bumble bees nests are being dug out on a regular basis and yet again no one blames the badgers. Just too many of the blasted things.
Totally agree,the public just does not seem capable of understanding that when a top predator receives complete protection, its numbers spiral out of control,I have a farm up the road from me that I have shot/ferreted ect on for the last 30 years, and where you could guarantee a good few bunnies to start young ferrets off, have all been dug out and turned into bloody great setts,they are undermining the walls, the telegraph poles and rolling the corn every year,I do hope common sense prevails soon and we can cull a significant amount, but somehow I doubt it.
 
How can there be too many badgers?? Thousands are being killed and dumped in the roads every year, Brian May said so:stir: :coat:

Cant be that there are so many getting run over cos there are so many of em can it??
 
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