Letter: Alarmed at number of dead badgers on Shropshire roads
Tuesday 2nd November 2010, 6:00AM GMT.
Letter: Can anyone explain the amount of dead badgers I have spotted recently on the roads?
I have seen up to four badgers in the space of a couple of yards.
Usually they can be spotted lying in the hedge or lying together in the road.
This seems to have happened in several areas, namely in Hope Valley, on the road from Priest Weston to Middleton and near Old Churchstoke.
I’m sure there wouldn’t be that many badgers knocked down together on the road.
And the badgers wouldn’t be able to jump up into the hedge.
Name and address supplied
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Oh come on, don’t be silly, you know what’s going on really!!!!
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As a member of the Illuminati, of course I know the real reason, but I’m only going to tell you a plausible one and expect you sheeple to swallow it.
When there are a lot of badgers there will inevitably be a lot of badgers killed on the roads. As badgers behave as badgers do they are likely to live in certain areas, follow certain paths and be attracted by certain scents hence some stretches of road will see more badger deaths than others. When hit by a car they are likely to be thrown sideways towards one of the hedges.
It has nothing to do with UFOs. Nothing. Forget I even mentioned UFOs. There are no UFOs right? Nothing to do with non-existant UFOs. Phew, think I got away with it.
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The problem is particularly bad on the road between Newport and Ketley. Only this morning I cycled past a massive dead badger in Donnington.
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Look, it’s just that they expand with gases when they start to decompose that makes them look big. It’s nothing to do with radioactive contamination from UFOs causing mutation of badgers into giant-badgers that will threaten human civilisation. Nothing to do with that whatsover. Will you people stop making me mention UFOs, whatever they even are.
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Ive heard rumors that a mad goverment scientist works at a secret lab near ketley. Expanding badgers with gases and making them a sort of zepplin would be his sort of thing.
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Not rocket science they cross the road they do not observe the green cross code, and as such are mainly hit by a lorry or car and then a number of other vehicles.No mystery, no dodgy goings on.
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Anyone with the slightest grasp of the Countryside can work out why this happens….
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No, not rocket science: some are legitimate road collisions, other have been illegally killed by badger baiters/cattle farmers and dumped. Two sows and three cubs dead within 10 yard of each other on A41 north of Newport. Nothing dodgy at all, indeed just like your local hunt does not ‘intentionally’ hunt foxes!
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That’s your answer. I stopped to look at a dead badger near Churchstoke the other day and it had a great deal of blood and wounding around its muzzle, which was not due to road traffic collision injury in my opinion.
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Far to many CSI watchers I think.Gary as for the hunt where is the proof and where are the prosecutions? oh yes the police are involved also dear oh dear.
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Can anyone please decipher the second sentence of the AW comment?
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yep , it looks like Gary has won first prize for telling the truth!!!
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Although it was a while ago (2001) the Mammal Society did a survey looking at the features of the highways, habitat surrounding roads etc, etc.
Of more than 5,500 mammal casualties hedgehogs came off worst at 29 per cent, followed by badgers at 25 per cent.
Since the survey badgers numbers have soared, mainly as they are protected by law and don’t have any natural predators.
Conspiracy theories, assumption and assertion aside, it’s not a huge suprise that there are more badger road casualties given the rise in population numbers and the fact there is more traffic.
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It is farmers illegally killing them and dumping the bodies at the side of the road.
Some of course will be killed in collision with motor vehicles. However the killing by farmers is the biggest open secret out in the country.
In 30 years of night time driving I have only seen live badgers on the road twice. In the last 5 years or so the sight of a dead badger is a daily occurance.
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Rupert Barrington-Black; if in 30 years of night time driving you have only ever seen live badgers twice then you really should visit an optician my friend. The night time was once the only time badgers were ever spotted. . It used not to be unusual for people to go their entire lives without actually seeing one, particularly in daylight. . They were never an endangered species and should not have been protected. . Badger baiting has always been illegal and never condoned or tolerated by the farming community.
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Why bother killing them and then driving them to a road and dumping them??.
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Because it’s illegal to kill them.
So if you happen to have killed a bager, or ten, what are you going to do to hide the evidence?
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Roadkill is usually removed from major roads and highways within 24 hours by the Highways dept. The carcasses are seldom examined, just incinerated. So lazy farmers who don’t want to bury the badgers they’ve killed dump them on the roadside.
Simples.
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I see all those that think badgers have more rights than farmers’ cattle are out in force again.
http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com/mvf/info/farming/Bovine_TB_A_Way_Forward
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They DO!
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You are a very sick boy Mick.
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why do badgers have more rights than cattle?
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Badgers are native wild mammals living natural lives. Dairy cattle are essentially human-engineered food production units.
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So that means cattle have no rights at all then?
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It’s not about the rights of the cattle – it’s about the farmers business suffering. The rights of cattle is a whole different argument!
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It’s those strange cigar shape craft that are to blame…I didn’t mention the word UFO, did I? Got away with that then…..
Live long and prosper unless you are a badger!
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Charles Henry,
I used to drive over 1500 miles a week , mainly nights, across wales and during darkness, never seen a live badger in the road, apart from abot 30 years ago, seen loads of dead ones usually in pairs….saw lots of sheep being moved around, during the foot and mouth crisis, under the cover of darkness too…strange things happen in the countryside when it’s dark.
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I think you must be a fantasist with a vivid imagination; but there it takes all sorts. .
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Unfortunately most badgers are too young to have been members of the Tufty Club.
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are you really not sure where they come from>?? i hate to be the one to tell you santa dont exist but the farmers kill them because well if you had a badger in your hen house you would understand, depsite what the wildlife and countryside act says they are pests, they need to be controlled and accidental roadkill on the lanes around farms just happens to be a nice cover story for what we all know is rural reality
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Have you not noticed that after the clocks go back and the earlier darker nights draw in for a short period of time there is increased roadkill? I notice it every year working on Hortonwood, for the first couple of weeks in November it’s like driving though an animal graveyard. They get the rush hour times confused for a spell as before it was light at rush hour and safer when dark, rabbits, badgers & foxes alike currently still think at the moment as soon as it goes dark the roads are quieter, they are animals, it takes them a couple of weeks to work it out
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They’re Badgers. Get Over It.
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I was planning to dress up as a badger for a fancy dress. Best not now.
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!road kill! save on my shopping bill free food for all!.me and my family have been eating this free food for years has not done us any harm
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And the webbed feet come in handy too of course!
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