Failure Upon Failure – The Collapse of England’s Badger Culls by Lesley Docksey

Image by Bobasonic via Flickr

by Lesley Docksey
Writer, Dandelion Salad
England
First published by The Ecologist
December 19, 2013

“These pilots are not on our land, but the ways the culls are being carried out is increasingly worrying and we are now concerned for the credibility and usefulness of the exercise. This sense of shifting scientific sands is a real issue for us, particularly if faced with any future proposition for wider culling.” — Patrick Begg, National Trust rural enterprise director

England’s Killing Fields Part 2: Badgers, Power and Protest by Lesley Docksey

by Lesley Docksey
Writer, Dandelion Salad
England
October 3, 2013

Image by Chris_Parfitt via Flickr

Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and cackles, groans, and dies.
John Clare – The Badger

The lanes of Somerset and Gloucestershire are being haunted by people from all walks of life but they all have one thing in common – they want to bring a halt to the killing of badgers.

England’s Killing Fields Part 1: Badger Culls Kill Scientific Honesty by Lesley Docksey

by Lesley Docksey
Writer, Dandelion Salad
England
October 3, 2013

Image by Bobasonic via Flickr

When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den
John Clare – The Badger

One always knows that, when government Ministers resort to defending Ministry policy in the local press, they are losing the argument with Joe Public. So it came as no surprise to read in the Gloucester Echo the justifications for the highly unpopular badger cull as written by Owen Paterson, UK Minister for the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) –

Unnatural England by Lesley Docksey

Image by Noel Reynolds via Flickr

by Lesley Docksey
Writer, Dandelion Salad
June 20, 2013

Great Britain is a small island, no more that 600 miles on its longest north/south axis from John O’Groats in Scotland to Lands End in Cornwall. Yet it has the most diverse geology, layer after layer of it laid down over the millennia. In other countries one might travel for 200 miles or even much more before the scenery changes in any way. Here 20 miles will do it, and the most obvious sign is what the old houses are built of.