Betty gets Rejected

Hello Betty Fans.  I was so looking forward to meeting Tony Juniper, the new head of Natural England next Tuesday, when he talks to the Wildlife Trust.  This is Mr Juniper:

Sadly,  I have been rejected by the Wildlife Trust. Mary just got an email and it says, 

" I am concerned that you are intending to bring your badger costume with you to the event. Please can I ask that you do not disrupt the event this way – we have to be mindful of the security and enjoyment of other attendees to the event. I’m afraid that if you do turn up with your badger costume you will not be allowed entry to the event. Whilst we appreciate and applaud your passion for the protection of badgers, and The Wildlife Trusts have been firmly anti-badger cull, we do not feel that this event is the right space to raise those concerns in this way. "

I don't know what they are talking about a costume for, but basically they say that if I come with Mary they will turn me and Mary away and because I will be disruptive and a threat to security.  They are probably worried that I will spread TB.  I am a very quiet Badger and I wouldn't cause any trouble or spread disease. I am really sad as I so wanted to meet Mr Juniper.  Perhaps Mary can hide one of the cubs in her bag and they can sneak a note to Mr Juniper and report back to me on what he says.  I wonder who told them I wanted to come...

The last few weeks have been very exciting because I have met Mr Gove 3 times and he has said Hello.  He also looked at my posters and I saw him stop and think.  When he becomes Prime Minister he will be all powerful and I think he will stop the Badger Kill-Cull.  I also had a long chat with Mr Gove's driver who is the kindest of men and always checks I am OK and not cold or thirsty.  He had never met a Badger before and he thinks I am a very clever and determined Badger. He is very loyal to Mr Gove because he believes him to be a good man and he doesn't tell me his secrets; well none that I am going to share here.  Mr Gove has a new black car.  I think it is armour plated now that he is going to be very important. 

The last two weeks have been very warm and I am dreading the summer as me and Mary got heat stroke last year in our furry coats.  I think Mary is getting too old for all this standing around and keeps complaining about her back. But she is as stubborn as a Mule and I think she will keep on coming with me to DEFRA even if I have to carry her.

I met one of my big fans today.  She is called Margaret Mary and wears a bright yellow raincoat.  She likes Badgers so much that she has a Badger tattoo on her back.  She had to take off quite a few clothes so we could see it.  The CCTV that records everything outside Marsham Street should make interesting viewing.  Mary wants a Badger tattoo now....     In fact, while writing this she has just bought on Amazon a temporary Tattoo drawn by Ali Chappell-Bates to see how will look.  I wonder where she will put it? I think I might get one for Mr Gove.....

There is always a lot going on  at Marsham Street.  Remember we had the bottle and we had the hupeople saving squirrels?  Well last week we had Hupeople trying to stop slavery. The protesters were lovely and caring and we took lots of pictures.  Here is one:

There have been odd going on at DEFRA in Smith Square.  Last week they were bringing in huge rolls of cable.  Mary sat on one because she was tired.  They say they were repairing the lift, but I do wonder what they are really doing.  

Also today they delivered a truck load of coffee. to Nobel House.  Mary says they are stockpiling coffee because of Brexit.  I am bored with Brexit because it makes Hupeople forget about everything else important such as Me!  Oh, and my Badger friends. The wheels of  Government might screech to a halt without coffee so they need to get plenty in.  Either that or they are hoping to make a big profit by selling it when supplies dry up.  I think Mary would sell her soul for  a cup of coffee in the morning.    Here are just a few boxes of that special coffee in DEFRA's doorway.

We were just writing this Blog when a Tweet came through with the heading  

New Defra study finds badgers have same bovine TB strain as cattle.

The data showed 40 out of 363 tested badgers (11 per cent) were positive for Mycobacterium bovis, all with the 17:z genotype previously identified in this area.(17:z) associated with HS21 (the hotspot area) had not previously been identified in cattle herds in Great Britain. Current investigations have concluded that disease is most likely to have been introduced by cattle imported from Northern Ireland.

That might sound very confusing to most Hupeople and Badgers but Mary explained it for me. Remember how I said that the way to stop TB spreading is to stop moving Cattle around?  In Cumbria an infected Bull was brought into a farm in a place called Shap from Northern Ireland and then transmitted TB to local wildlife which spread to more Cows.

The wildlife are the innocent victims of importing infected Cows, but what does DEFRA do?  They don't stop Cow movements but let in an infected Bull come from Northern Ireland and he mates and infects loads of Cows, These Cows infect wildlife including Deer and lovely Badgers . Then they kill the Badgers..!

Mary says this is Alice in Wonderland logic.  She just said very loudly: STOP CATTLE MOVEMENTS AND YOU WILL STOP NEW OUTBREAKS. It is the Cows who are making us Badgers ill AND YET WE GET BLAMED and are killed as scapeGoats to poor farming practices and testing regimes. 

I sometimes wonder if those Hupeople in DEFRA have any brains at all.

I am so upset by all this that I want to focus on something much more positive: Spring. Isn't it wonderful to see the leaves coming on the Trees and the Bluebells pushing up.  Remember, Badgers eat Bluebells.   The Worms are stirring in the earth which makes us very happy because Worms are our favourite food.   The main trouble now in my life, apart from the Kill-Cull, is Mary's Chickens because they eating all my Worms. Mary doesn't know this but the Chickens are laying and hiding eggs all around her garden.  She hasn't discovered them and I eat them up while she is asleep in bed.  This was my latest find: 

I was so full when I had eaten them all and there was the bonus of a couple of tasty Pheasant eggs too.  Please don't tell Mary.  In any case she doesn't eat eggs but gives them to her neighbours.  Since I am her friend it only seems right that I should get first pickings

Mary is a bit annoyed with me because I knock her fence down every night because I have to get in to eat the peanuts she puts down. for me  The problem is that the Chickens keep escaping.  She is covered in scratches where she is chasing them through the hedges.  They make her life hard because she has to get up earlier and earlier every morning to let the Chickens out because they like to get up at dawn.  Mary gets up before six every morning and she is losing friends because she has to go to bed so early rather than having fun with them.

I did offer to bite the Chicken's heads off but she didn't like that idea. But I think we have solved the problem. Mary has invested a lot of Money in a Chicken Guard automatic Chicken coop door opener so she does't have to get up so early.  Even though she installed it (all on her own) a few days ago, she still gets up early because she worries it won't work. 

Time to go and look after the cubs so their mother can have a rest.  I am a grandmother and aunty Badger now and I love playing with the little ones.  I smile and weep at their innocence and the possibility that they will not live beyond the Autumn when the next Kill-Cull will probably start.  Life is so hard for Badgers.  

Lots of Love and Night Night

Betty🐾🐾🐾

Betty Hits the Bottle

Hello Fans! Betty here. Bottles feature today.  I hung around the big plastic bottle that landed outside DEFRA. It was very pretty and caused quite a stir.  You Hupeople can be quite clever at times. 

I liked the DEFRA bottle so much that Mary got me my own Badger sized bottle to hang around.  Here we are having fun with it:  

Another bottle that I want to mention is the one Mary drinks out of in the evening.  It is dark green and whatever it contains makes her jolly when she drinks it  She has given bottles up for Lent and has become a bit irritable.  Luckily her Lent isn't very long; in fact she calls it a Novena. Apparently that is a Roman Catholic tradition.  I have absolutely no idea what she is talking about but I am glad that it won't be long before she is jolly again.  Here is one of her bottles that she buys from a box on wheels called Ocado 

The March weather has made our DEFRA vigils difficult in March.  Last week we got wet and muddy; I hate having cold paws.   Our lives were saved by a lovely Human who brought us a steaming hot cup of green tea. There are some lovely kind Hupeople in the world. Mary gave us all a good wash and here are the cubs drying out on the radiator.

Do you remember last year how I used to meet a man in a really white shirt?  Well I met him again last week and he noticed how clean I was.... We had a nice chat about Mr Gove.  He said that Gove probably really likes Badgers and is working behind the scenes to save us but he cannot be seen with me because it would damage his chances of becoming the Prime Minister.  You can imagine the headlines under of picture of Mr Gove and Betty. Perhaps we can be friends when he becomes Prime Minister.  Perhaps I am fooling myself, but I am very hopeful badger.  

This week we had a very hard time with the gales, so much so that Mary made us go home early. The problem was that our placards kept blowing away, even landing in the Home Office/DEFRA moat.  But even worse, my cubs kept flying off the DEFRA window sill and rolled down the road.  Mary counted then out and counted them back and we were lucky still to have seven at the end of the day.

The security men are always very friendly and call out "Hello Betty".  One of then told me that some naughty protesters turned the DEFRA/Home Office moat red by filling it with dye.  Apparently it was expensive to fix so everyone was angry.  I said they are cruel to wildlife because they put bleach into the  moat so the birds can't drink from it.  There is not much opportunity for birds to drink good water around Westminster.  I think they should turn the moat into a wildlife pond so the big crow who comes to visit us every week doesn't die of thirst.  I must ask Mary to write to Mr Gove about that. 

I wasn't sad to see the farming Minister Mr Eustice resign but I heard through the Badger Grapevine that he doesn't like Badgers either. Mary just read about him in Pig World and Poultry news . He knows about farming and woodland burials for Hupeople. He also speaks lots of languages.  He is big mates with the NFU which doesn't bode well for us Badgers.

Here is his picture:

But there is some much better news.  Today Tony Juniper has been appointed as the new Chair of Natural England.  These are the people who actually organise the killing of us Badger Folk.  If anyone can stop the killing it is Mr Juniper because he was involved with the WWF and other animal-loving Charities such as the Wildlife Trusts. Here is his picture:

So we Badgers and our Badger loving friends are keeping our fingers and claws crossed.  Mary is going to meet Mr Juniper when he gives a talk in April.  I will ask her to take me with her so I can tell him all about how we Badgers have lost 70,000 of our friends and my husband Brian and my cub Bryony who were both shot and I still have a broken heart. 

Mary asked me to mention the several Hupeople who introduced themselves to her at DEFRA having heard her on Radio 4 PM programme.  It was lovely to meet you all and thank you for coming to talk to us.  We specially liked the Huwoman from Cumbria who had been searching for us and wanted to shake my paw because she loves badgers. 

I want to finish with some nice picture we took last week in Westminster.  This first one is of a Human with a really smelly machine who was filling holes in the ground with sticky black stuff; I would hate to get that on my paws:

And a lovely picture taken in a park we walk by just down the road from DEFRA.  Spring is coming and soon the cubs will be playing out in the sun

Night Night, Betty  and her Cubs 🐾🐾🐾