Dear past supporters and potential supporters, please note that we have a current appeal at the moment (May/June 2022) if you follow this Link:  https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-government-badger-culls/ 

After a year of delay and additional cost, The Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice has given permission to challenge an important aspect of the 2020 "Next Steps" Bovine TB eradication policy.

The trial will test whether government failed to have regard to its statutory duty to protect biodiversity in England under Section 40 (1) of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act (2006), before they ordered its quango Natural England (NE) to arrange the decimation of badgers across much of the west of England.

Cruel, unnecessary badger killings  will double from now until  2026, from 140,000 badgers already shot to  around 280,000. With a little mentioned long term policy to expand the extermination of badgers locally in the longer term, as has already happened in Cumbria and Lincolnshire. This is happening  in and around our woods, fields and nature areas, perhaps even close to where you live, with multiple side effects and implications. It just has to stop.

The government policy hangs on involved modelling, based on culling data from three areas only until 2017. It ignores more recent published science showing no such benefits are real. The manner in which badger removal impacts our wider countryside has, like many threats from economic demands on nature, never been properly addressed.

Last year, the Badger Trust generously contributed £5,000 to help seek permission for a case to be made. Badger Groups, other charities and many individuals also gave donations and support to help win through a lengthy appeals process and seek the access to justice that is now available. Your persistence paid off.

With your help we can now fight on and to stop the policy in its tracks before it causes more damage to biodiversity protection and recovery. And before it does more harm to badgers, cows, farm families and livelihoods. All of whom deserve far better approaches to dealing with a widespread livestock disease that infects and pollutes the environment in very many unseen ways.

Together, in numbers, the Badger Crowd can achieve this. The immediate need is to raise £24,000 over the next few months to cover costs for the dedicated legal team planning and preparing the case. They will write legal representations, give advice, attend hearings and deal with matters relating to the deeply flawed government "Next Steps" policy. Every penny raised goes to legal essentials and nothing else.

Thanks to many of  you for helping get to a point where a challenge can be taken. Thanks also to those donating now for the first time. Once more, we will stand up and fight for the badgers, our beautiful, enigmatic and protected mammal. Victim of the poorly managed cattle TB epidemic and failed statutory duties.