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 🐾🐾🐾

Betty Muses on Life and Death

Hello Fans,Betty is back. In fact I never went away but Mary has been too busy looking after her very, very old mother to help me use the computer.  However, we have been to the three DEFRA offices every week and we have lots of news.

At DEFRA Marsham Street I met three lovey Hupeople protesting against the killing of grey squirrels.  Here is their picture:  

They want everyone to sign their petition to stop animal vets being forced to kill any squirrels who are brought in for medical treatment. 

Hupeople are blaming the grey Squirrels for killing the red ones but I have heard that the red ones are declining because Hupeople are cutting down too many trees and destroying their habitats.  Not many people know but we used to kill red squirrels too and that has affected the numbers.   They were accused of damaging trees and eating eggs.

Muntjac deer as well as grey squirrels are to be designated as illegal aliens and vets won't be able to treat them either,  This is very sad for me because some of my best friends are Muntjac deer.  Here is a video of me playing with my deer and fox friends a couple of nights ago:

There were 2 foxes last week but the gamekeeper shot the other one.

Mary's friend Tom, who sometimes writes nice comments on my blog, sent her some very sad information about the Defra's Natural England who has allowed the killing of 170,000 wild birds in the last five years.  This is the headline from The Guardian : "Natural England has given permission to kill birds of more than 70 species, or have their nests and eggs destroyed. These include peregrine falcons, barn owls, buzzards and red kites, alongside garden favourites such as robins, blackbirds and blue tits. A licence was even issued to destroy a wrens’ nest to “preserve public safety” in South Yorkshire."

If you want a link to the article this is it : Natural England allows lots of killing

I wonder who makes these dreadful decisions to kill wild animals like Badgers, and Squirrels and Ravens and wrens?  How do they sleep at night?  

We saw Mr Farage again and this time he had only two bodyguards.  Perhaps his life isn't so much at risk now as you Hupeople are fed up with all your politicians.  And I am happy to report that I have seem Mr Gove twice and on both occasions he stopped and said hello.  He hesitated and I think he was going to have a chat with me but then thought better of it, probably because he thought I might bite off some body part.  Dear Mr Gove I promise I won't...yet.  This is a nice picture of Mr Gove.  I think he will be the Prime Minister one day.




I heard that The NFU had their Annual Conference yesterday and were calling for even more badger deaths.  Lots of lies were told, for example they said how the incidence of Cow TB is going down since the killing of Badgers, began.  It is going up.  Also another farmer has been sent to court for moving cattle illegally, therefore risking the spread of TB.  And STILL they blame Badgers.

In our sett the cubs are being born now and our home is full of the squeals of new life.  None for me this year but perhaps one day.....  Remember the picture I showed you last year? This is what they look like:

They won't be leaving the set for a while because they can't see.   I would like to remind all you Hupeople that you must be especially careful when you are driving your metal boxes on wheels because if you knock over a nursing mother all the little cubs will die of starvation.  So please drive very slowly. 

It is so wonderful to see the new life carrying our Badger memories, stories and our paths on into the future. We have been trundling around the British Islands since Ice Age.  It is so sad that some of our tribes have already died out in parts because of persecution.  I will never understand Hupeople.

Still there are some lovely Hupeople who hep us and some of you are reading this.  We Badgers thank you from the bottom of our stripey hearts

At the other end of life is old age.  I am now a middle aged Badger.  We can live for fifteen years, but many of us die much younger because of hunger, thirst, road accidents and DEFRA.

Mary's mother is so ancient at 88 that she is starting to crumble in every way,  She has just broken her arm and her hip and possibly her mind.  But she still remembers my name and the fact that I go with Mary every Thursday to DEFRA.    I think they decided she was crazy when she told everyone in hospital that her daughter goes to Defra every Thursday with a Badger.  I must tell them that she is not delirious and that her daughter does in fact do that.  Here is Mary's mother:

I am going to stay well away from Hospitals (except Tiggywinkles who are kind to animals)  because they stick tubes up your nose, needles in your stomach and suppositories in  your bottom.   

I am going to finish now as Mary has to go to Hospital again to see her mother.  But we will still be at DEFRA on Thursday and hope that Mr Gove will stop and talk to us this week

I discovered today that DEFRA and security staff are now calling Thursday "Betty Day." Isn't that jolly?   

Night Night, Betty 🐾🐾🐾

Betty and the BBC and Mr Gove

Hello Betty Fans,  Oh what an exciting day I had with Lovely Luke from the BBC who followed me around on my journey and, guess what, I met my arch enemies Mr Gove and Mr Eustice . 

 

But I am running ahead of my story.  Mary sent a sentence of news to the BBC Radio 4 iPM programme expressing her ambivalence about going to London every week.  I thought she meant she enjoyed it but "ambivalence" is a big word for a Badger and she told me it meant that she was in 2 minds about going.  I think that's a bit shabby- I thought she liked our adventures. Anyway, the BBC got in touch with Mary and said Luke Jones would like to go with me and Mary on our weekly trip to DEFRA.  I told Luke to make sure he wrapped up warm because we have had snow and it was really, really cold. Here is a picture of the snow in Mary's garden.  The Chickens did not like it- they aren't tough like us Badgers.

Luke came to Mary's house and she drove him to the station.  I told him how brave he was  going in the car with her.  We all stood on the platform being interviewed by Luke.  Then we went on the train and the silver tubeworm.  We walked to our first DEFRA venue in Smith Square and Luke asked me and Mary lots of questions about why we have been going to DEFRA every Thursday for 18 months. Mary said it was to bring to attention the cruelty, irrationality and cost of killing 70,000 Badgers in the last five years, 

This is Luke.  

He is very clever and charming and Mary said he will be famous one day; he has already run the proper PM programme once I think.  He probably wants to be the next Eddie Mair or, more likely, Louis Theroux.   You Hupeople who don't listen to the radio may have no idea what I am talking about.  Radio 4 is  radio station that intellectual older people like Mary listen to, although Radio 4 is  trying to be more "accessible" to younger  and  less clever folk.  Which will probably explain why all the important serious bits Mary told Luke were edited out and the programme became a jolly day out with a Badger-mad eccentric. Still we laughed a lot, especially when Mary had to explain to Luke that Gays were not Badgers.

We stood outside DEFRA and people waved but DEFRA staff were very shy when they saw the microphone and didn't want to say anything that might get them in trouble. We even saw Mr Gove's lovely driver but I didn't tell Luke because I didn't want to cause any trouble for my friend. One lovely Human who was delivering a parcel said how much he liked badgers.  He told us all about Honey Badgers who live a long way away.  They are not as handsome a European Badgers:



When these Badgers are in the mood for mating, they become super-badgers and will even attack a big Bear.  Their speciality is biting off the testicles of Bears or anyone else who gets in the way of their passions.  Luke cut that part of the interview out. Here is a picture of Mr Gove and Mr Eustice with Mrs May.  They both look a bit worried; perhaps they know that an Angry Badger is after them.  

Actually I had just told Luke how much I hated these Ministers because they have killed my Brian and Bryony and all the other 70,000 Badgers for no good scientific reason   Mr Gove and Mr Eustice came along later and, in his usual polite fashion, Mr Gove said Hello.  Mr Eustice smiled; if only they knew what I was thinking about.  They are very lucky that I am not a Honey Badger but am instead a polite British Badger who doesn't eat testicles.

Or perhaps they did know because what should come along  but a Pest Control Van that parked next to me:

Obviously there wasn't a Badger Control Van nearby so they sent a Beaver Van instead.  I quickly moved on from Great Peter Street to Marsham Street to get out of danger.  I sent Luke home because he turned blue.  These London types just don't know how to dress for standing around in freezing temperatures. 

I had lots of people taking their Selfies with me and promising to tweet and Instagram me.    Mary dragged me home early because she was worried about her Chickens dying of cold.    Once we got home she got out one of her best bed coverings and put it on the snow to stop their feet getting cold.  Honestly!

Mary heard her radio programme on Saturday evening by accident.  She was a bit annoyed that taking me to London every week was under the heading of an "extreme hobby"!!!  She had hoped for a more intelligent and serious article, but at least she might have raised the profile of Badgers for me.  And Luke was good company.  I think he owes Mary and me an interview with Mr Gove and Mr Eustice..  Now THAT would make a jolly programme for iPM and I promise not to bite any part of their bodies.... below the waist anyway.

If you want to hear Mary then this is the link to the programme:
Betty on BBC Radio 4

We went to DEFRA again today but we had no great adventures.  One man did shout at me and said I should be worrying about the world and not Badgers.  I told him that we worry about everything and want to make the whole world a better place for Hupeople and Badgers and Polar bears , even for Chickens.  I reminded him of the words of Mahatma Gandhi who said "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Britain isn't doing very well on that score...

Night Night fans

Betty🐾🐾🐾