Last night I was involved in a Zoom Webinar. Am I the first Badger to do that? Probably, since I am a remarkable Badger at the interface between Wild Life, Humans and Technology. Mary told me that a Webinar is sitting with people a long way away; you can see them and hear them and talk to them but you can't touch them and, most importantly for a Badger, you can't smell them. Here I am zooming in the garden:
As you might have guessed, the Webinar was all about Badgers and included some famous Hupeople including Dominic Dyer CEO of the Badger Trust, Craig Fellowes who is a Wildlife Crime Expert, Chris of Mary's local Badger group and Tom Langton who dedicates his life to having legal battles to stop the Badger Kill-Cull, I like Tom a lot. He acknowledged how many Badger-loving Hupeople weep every night knowing that Badgers and our Cubs are being shot and injured and killed for no good reason. Mary had a water coming from her eyes when he said that because it is so true and painful.
I was allowed to ask a question. I was so excited. I asked why Cow vaccination seemed to have been forgotten as a solution to Bovine TB and also Who is really the Force behind the Evil, Cruel, Unscientific and irrational Badger Kill-Cull. I only wish that some clever investigator would get to the root of it and tell everyone, but they only seem interested in Personalities, Politics and Covid 19
Our Thursday vigil outside Downing Street/Defra continues after 3 years and I am learning more about the Hupeople race. What strange eccentric individuals hang around Downing Street, me and Mary being the exception when it comes to being odd.
Last week we met a Human who told us to take his picture and warn us about the Lizards who run the world. He wanted us to put the photo in the internet, so that's what I am doing Now. Please read his message carefully, because that would make him happy and might save the world...
The next odd Human we met last Thursday wanted to get in the gates to meet Boris; not my friend Boris the Badger, but Boris the Human who pretends to run the country. We all know that he is incapable of running the country and it is run by Civil Servants, Vested Interests and, even perhaps, Lizards. The Police Officers wouldn't let him in, even though he claimed to have the solution to Covid 19. It had something to do with running a socially distant music festival. He promised to return later with "six beautiful women" and they would all wear plastic buckets on their heads. Mary told me that the plastic buckets he was using were 79 p from B&Q. Here is a B&Q bucket which is very good value, Mary says:
These buckets are iconic, whatever that means, and some Hupeople use them to pour freezing water over their heads to collect Money for charity... I will never understand the Hupeople Race....
We also had some more sensible protesters asking for justice for Sri Lanka and saying that the British Government should take the country of of the Commonwealth. They made a lot of noise shouting but they were very angry...
Yesterday when I arrived at Downing Street I was quite shocked to find herds of Hupeople already there taking up my standing position. I was not a happy Badger, particularity as protests are supposed to happen on the other side of Whitehall and not on my side outside the gates. Anyway, we set up the family and our signs and generally got in everybody's way while they took their pictures and had the press interview them.
The first protest was by really old Hupeople wanting the BBC to carry on paying for the TV licences. You need to pay lots of money to watch pictures in a box called a TV, which is a bit like a Zoom webinar, but you can't talk to the Hupeople on there. One of the protesters was a lovely ancient Huwoman with white hair and a hat and more than 75 years old who was a member of the Badger Trust. Imagine how big a tree would grow in all those years... good job people stop growing fairly young. Imagine what even greater havoc they could cause to the world if they kept on growing even bigger. Anyway she loved Badgers and supported me. Here she is:
Another protest group was involved in aviation and wanted the government to support the aviation industry to save their livelihoods and the planes. Me and Mary are not very keen on planes as they are noisy and destroy the planet but, as Mary says, not as much as eating meat and drinking milk.
Then there was a protest with 38 Degrees with some Nurses and a petition asking for them to have some more money. Money seems very important to Hupeople. Here they are:
On the subject of Money I also met a young Human called Sean who had just come back from conference in a place called Dubai which is on the other side of the world where he met Bill and Melinda Gates. They met to talk about The Virus, Artificial Intelligence, the end of Cash Money, and State Control. He explained that when Cash is taken away in a couple of years then the governments can block Hupeople from taking part in society or even buying food as a means of control. So we would have to be very well behaved or there would be Consequences. I'm not too worried because Badgers don't like Money because you can't eat it, but I think Mary will be stockpiling food in case she upsets too many important Hupeople. I will share my worms with her as she has always been generous with peanuts and never ever forgets to put them out at night.
The Police Officers must have so much fun with all the oddballs who come to see Boris' house. And then the tourists are starting to come back and loads of them want their picture taken with me. Betty Badger is famous around the world. Becky the Police Officer is in charge of all the Officers behind the Downing Street gates. She says "Hello Betty" every week. She makes sure me and Mary have enough water and are OK when it is very hot. She is my Friend.
Before I get back to talking about Badgers I must mention the Chickens.... and Foxes On Saturday Mary took in two refugee Chickens from Finsbury Park which is near London Town. Even though Chickens are often kept in tiny miserable spaces Alex and Mo, who have a nice garden, felt that their girls, Barbara and Margot, needed somewhere bigger they could wander around in and have adventures. Mary explained hat hentigration can be difficult and the new girls get bullied until the pecking order is established. So Mary has to keep them apart until they all make friends. Barbara has started talking to Snowdrop...
Margot had a big adventure on her third day when she caught a mouse and ran around the garden triumphant with all the other 10 chickens running after her in a sort of scrum. Unfortunately Margot had never seen a pond before and tried walking on water, which not many creatures can do, and she sank. Mary saved her life, but Margot lost her mouse. She has now learned about water and that hens are not ducks and can't swim. Here are Barbara and Margot.. Margot is the wet one...
I think Mary has gone feral. She caught a Fox the other night. Do you remember how I said about the Foxes and Cubs had mange? Well Mary is trying to catch them and get them treated so they don't suffer. Well, she caught a Cub in her trap and took it to a wonderful Huwoman to look after it until it its better. Then it will be returned to near Mary's garden, which isn't great news for the chickens.... Mary sleeps near the trap so she can hear if she catches another fox, although foxes are very clever and won't fall for the same jam sandwich temptation again. Here is the Cub in its trap. It is doing very well:
I said I would return to the Badger Kill-Cull which is very difficult for me and Mary to talk about because it makes us so sad. The government is already killing us this summer while the cubs are still small and they might shoot 50,000 of us this year. They have already killed 110,000. This is so wrong. There is no reason to do this except to please farmers who hate us. Only last week Mary was talking to her local farmer and she old him how I come to her garden and he said we were dreadful because we kill all the Bees! Perhaps he forgot that all the evil chemicals he sprays all around the fields might also have something to do with killing the Bees.
Only last week another local farmer filled in the holes of a Badger sett because he was renting out the land to some Hupeople with Horses and didn't want the Horses to fall in the holes. So my friends would have been suffocated so he could get rent from his land. Fortunately lovely Human noticed when he was out walking and he saved their lives by unblocking all the holes. This sort of thing happens every day.
During our exciting Webinar we learned so much especially about how the government is using millions of pounds of Money on worthless bTB research which will not help Badgers or Cows, but want to be seen to be doing something. And while the research goes on they can feel justified to carry on killing us. Undoubtedly there are powerful Vested Interests at the heart of Defra. We should be vaccinating Cows- simple as that.
We met a lovely Human called Charlie outside Downing Street. He loves wildlife and he, like many others, believed the Defra announcement in March saying they were phasing out the Kill-Cull. They lied. Who would have thought that a Government would lie so blatantly? Defra and Natural England fully intend to kill us for the next five years at least and in larger numbers. The Kill-Cull may well be coming to your local area, if it hasn't already.
On Thursday we met a journalist called Oliver Milne who works for Daily Mirror. That is one newspaper that prints true articles about the Kill-Cull. He took my picture and asked me to get in touch, which Mary will do on my behalf, although I am getting quite good at this computer stuff.
Thank you to all the wonderful Hupeople who work to save our lives and who cry every night at the wrongness of the killing. We are so grateful that you care and do your best for us.
I will finish with a happy sunny picture of Mary's Chickens playing "I'm the king of the Castle" on a garden Chair.
Night Night,
Betty
🐾🐾🐾
