This made me feel sick

[levigsp]

W.
as someone else said, the old lads from the 40's and 50's would have broken their legs for them with a shovel and not bothered reporting them to the feds.

The trouble with what you say is that true badger baiting was rife in the Uk in the 50s, where they bought the badgers from terrier men, broke a leg or two on the badger , put it in the pit with a number of terriers and every time the badger hurt the terrier, it was damaged a bit more by the baiters,.
Now the fact of the matter is that most of the OLD boys turned a blind eye to it! same with cock fighting.
There is nothing wrong with legit badger of fox digging or coursing, Ive practiced all and so have countless thousands of others that are true country sportsmen.
But the people who seem to practice these things now they are banned and baiters , cock fighters , haven't got any moral or ethical standards and are vermin and deserve to be destroyed as such.

 

[BryanDC]

To get back to the original point - yes, unfortunately the media tends to conflate this sort of thing with legitimate hunting, and the only people who will bother to state the difference are ourselves. As individuals, we can have little effect beyond our own personal circles, but this is one place where BASC, CA etc could do us real favours by issuing press releases to this effect in response - along the lines of how their members utterly condemn this sort of thing and are actively keen to catch such people (I know I am!). A general policy or the odd comment is not sufficient. For the very same reasons I think the shooting community should shout and condemn the loudest when someone is genuinely caught involved in raptor persecution. To ensure our way of life is one day stopped entirely, all we have to do is sit quietly and allow only the antis voices to be heard, and criminals like these to be seen.

This is exactly what should be happening and it is the only way of protecting the future of fieldsports.