Wild Justice seeks answers from Defra over Badger cull

We have received many requests, pleas and some communications akin to demands, that we take legal action against Defra over its outrageous, cruel and unscientific Badger cull programme and against Natural England over its licensing of these culls.

This may be a useful juncture at which to make clear that just because we and others dislike and oppose any particular government action it does not mean that there is a strong legal case to be taken on that subject; our and your opposition to government action does not make it illegal! Others have taken legal cases on the Badger cull and we have wished them luck and hoped that they might influence events but, to date, they have made valid points which have been taken on board but have not landed a killer blow to this cull.

Wild Justice has been following this issue with concerned interest and yesterday we sent the letter below to Defra and copied it to Natural England. The letter is not the start of formal legal action by Wild Justice against Defra on this subject but may be the precusor to such action as the letter makes clear;

This is not a formal letter under the Pre-Action Protocol, but your responses may inform such a letter. Given that it is foreseen that culling will take place in Autumn 2019, a response within the normal 20 working days under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 is inappropriate. We therefore request an urgent response to this letter within 10 working days, i.e. by 4pm on Friday 11 October 2019, or earlier if culling is to commence before then.

Wild Justice will be making contact with experts on Badgers in the Badger Trust, academia and wildlife NGOs – some of them are already close contacts of ours.

At this stage we have not launched a crowdfunder and we are not asking for financial support (although sending a letter of the sort below clearly entails both work from Wild Justice and our legal team and some expense) although if we take this matter further we will ask for your support.