Put up signs to protect badgers (From Worcester News)

I'm sure that you meant it this way anyway Ray, but if you altered the signs (rather than sticking another one up) you'd just end up with less dead badgers and more dead bikers!

Well the badgers aren't paying attention to the Beware Bikers sign are they? It works both ways!

Badgers are creatures of habit and tend to follow the same paths across their territories, which is why you often find a number of dead ones in the same area. There's also a lot of evicted naive young ones around at the moment as they've been kicked out as the sows have just had this year's cubs (generally in January). Whilst signs would be good in theory, because badgers are loyal to their territories they'd also advertise the location of badgers to baiters, which is obviously undesirable.
I hear talk of badgers being shot by farmers and dumped on the road, but this happens a lot less than it's talked about. The numbers we find are very low (I'm a member of a number of wildlife groups, including the badger society).
Badgers unfortunately just tend to be really rubbish at the green cross code.

...and why aren't motorists looking where they are going and driving within the range of their headlights?

CS.

Common Sense wrote:
...and why aren't motorists looking where they are going and driving within the range of their headlights?

CS.

Sometimes it is impossible for a motorist to avoid a collision, as the Badger (or Fox, Rabbit, whatever) will run straight out infront of the car.
.
Even someone with the reactions of (insert name of favourite F1 driver here!) would have trouble avoiding it, regardless of whether they were driving within the speed limits and range of their headlights or not.

On the positive side, Badgers seem to be doing very well in Gheluvelts Park - I was at the tennis courts yesterday and there looks to be a HUGE new Badger set on the bank there!

Tulstar wrote:
On the positive side, Badgers seem to be doing very well in Gheluvelts Park - I was at the tennis courts yesterday and there looks to be a HUGE new Badger set on the bank there!

That's useful for me to know - thanks. We've been asked to go and help someone with badger issues in that area, and to know where they may be coming from is useful.

Marant wrote:

Tulstar wrote:
On the positive side, Badgers seem to be doing very well in Gheluvelts Park - I was at the tennis courts yesterday and there looks to be a HUGE new Badger set on the bank there!

That's useful for me to know - thanks. We've been asked to go and help someone with badger issues in that area, and to know where they may be coming from is useful.

They're all over the place up there. I used to live not too far away from the park on Park View Terrace, and we had a set in our back garden (well, a bit of land that backed onto it). I used to regularly see them in the evenings close to the Pumphouse too.

Coming back one dark night from Droitwich to Evesham, a badger ran out of the hedge straight in front of my car (it seemed to run straight at my headlights). Despite braking, I just caught it on my passenger side and then ended up in the hedge as a result (thankfully unhurt).
I was not speeding and a car travelling behind me pulled alongside to make sure I was alright, before setting off again.
The badger unfortunately was killed, and I ended up with £1000 worth of damage to my car.

And you can't claim off a dead badger.........

When you think of the damage done to a car by a badger just try and imagine the result of something larger. Imagine the result of hitting a deer or wild boar!

I know. It was really scary. It lolloped towards me like a polar bear in slow motion, it looked huge! It was so big that as my left front wheel went over it, the bumper and lights were all but ripped off. The bang was horrendous.
Stupidly, I got out and tried to see where it was (my husband told me it was a good job it was dead, as badgers are not the friendliest creatures when they are alive and well, let alone when someone has run them over!).
It was pitch black, I couldn't see anything so I got back in and limped up to Evesham, with my bumper and lights hanging on by a thread, and then called my husband for help.

I couldn't believe the damage done the next morning when I had a look at the car properly.

Are the Badger supporters considering these little and Large animals are carrying and sharing around TB. So in my opinion Farmers are right to get rid of them by one method or another.
As to the Badgers and other animals on the road you / we should never swerve to avoid an animal, brake sensibly yes but not swerve.

The old TB debate..

Yes.. badgers do carry TB, but then again, so does every other mammal, particularly deer, rats and hedgehogs. Badgers seem to come in for a great deal of stick over TB, perhaps because they're obvious targets, and largely because "everybody knows that don't they" - and once the world was flat. Nobody thinks about the deer because people rarely see them and mass culling bambi would be unthinkable, killing all the rats would be impossible, but culling 'ferocious old badger' is acceptable because they're mean and nasty, aren't they? I'd be ferocious if you put be in a pit with a dog (or hit me with a car). Yes, they can be dangerous if they attack, but if you encounter a badger in the wild (a rare enough event as they tend to stay clear, they're just very short-sighted), it will run away rather than attack you (unless you trap or make it feel threatened - just like any wild animal).
There have been several independent studies that have shown that culling badgers will not significantly reduce the level of TB in cattle, and often make the situation worse. http://rspb.royalsoc
ietypublishing.org/c
ontent/274/1626/2769
.abstract

is one example.

Provision of better, more accurate TB tests and the production of a vaccine will cut TB in the herds. The current test is not infallible, leading to a small incidence of infected cattle being transported around the country - note I'm not having a go at farmers here, famers are beleagured on all sides and no-one can blame them for using the only tests available. Better biosecurity and vaccines will not only be at least as effective but also a lot cheaper. The figures I have seen, from independent reports, indicate that to prevent just 20 outbreaks of TB in herds, every badger within 100 square miles would have to be killed over a period of 5 years. Aside from the animal welfare side (this would be achieved by snares and poison gassing), the cost would be approximately 40 times what the farmers are paid in compensation.

The only way to curb TB outbreaks in cattle is by adopting a combined approach, involving better tests, vaccines and . Badgers came out about 2/3rds the way down the list of the top 21 factors relating to TB spread in the largest independent study conducted to date.

I am not actually against culling of badgers where it is proved that it will make a significant difference, but this is likely to be in isolated areas where there is a particularly high incidence of TB in the badger population, and culling alone will make no signficant difference in any incidence if it is not combined with other measures.

Too often the culling is trotted out by the government so that they can be seen to be doing something, when on its own it is pointless killing of wildlife, against which we should all be opposed.

Apologies.. I meant 100km2 in the above, not 100 miles.