How art can save badgers: celebrating World Art Day
- Badger Trust Staff Team
- Apr 15, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 29, 2024
Badger Trust’s ‘Wildlife Artivism to End the Cull’ project inspires action for badgers in a positive community campaign.
Launched on World Art Day 2024, ‘Wildlife Artivism to End the Cull’ is a new project spearheaded by six wildlife artists who have come together to support the campaign to end the badger cull.
Wildlife Artist, Martin Aveling, explained:
“Wildlife Artivism is truth storytelling. It combines art and activism to push for environmental change by inspiring empathy towards the natural world.
“When art only relies on the beauty of wildlife to drive people to take action, it fails to acknowledge the suffering, which is a big part of the wildlife narrative and a motivation for people to help.
Beauty on its own can create a false sense of serenity, preventing people from seeing what is really happening. Art can allow us to confront difficult subjects in a more palatable space, without ever compromising on sincerity.”
The project will reveal exclusive original artwork to share and inspire alongside practical, creative ideas for people of all ages and abilities. From sending a beautiful letter with a deeply serious message to creating campaign posters and fact sheets, the aim is to share the badger’s beauty and ecological importance while raising awareness of the badger population's dire threat from the cull.
Martin is joined by wildlife artists Alicia Hayden, Claire Heffron, Jess Pritchard, Sarah Stribbling and Tracy Warner, who are exclusively creating original art together and separately for the project.
Martin added:
“Humans have been trying to control nature for centuries and all it has done is to make things considerably worse for the planet and all its inhabitants. The badger is one of the UK’s most iconic animals and an important ecosystem engineer. In a country already so nature-depleted, we need to make space for wildlife and stop forcing it to fit around us.”
Dr Hannah Trayford, Badger Trust Research and Campaign Manager, commented:
"We hope our ‘Wildlife Artivism to End the Cull’ project will inspire a deeper appreciation for badgers and their plight and motivate people to protect and conserve them for future generations.
She continued:
“Art can reach and build a community that will push for change and raise awareness that the badger, one of our most iconic native wild animals, is being systematically wiped out from parts of our landscape to control a cattle-spread disease.
We encourage anyone of any age, ability, or background to get involved and use Artivism to motivate policymakers, stakeholders, nature lovers, badger champions, and our fellow planet dwellers to take urgent action to End the Cull before it's too late for badgers.”
Get involved in Wildlife Artivism to End the Cull
Download our exclusive badger A4 sheet and use it to create your own ‘Wildlife Artivism to End the Cull’ project.
Download
1. Write a letter.
A beautifully illustrated letter will stand out from the crowd. Use our badger A4 sheet to write a letter to your MP, local election candidates, national and regional media outlets, prominent wildlife and nature campaigners and organisations, and local community groups and organisations, clubs and societies.
Raise awareness of the badger cull's effect on England’s badgers and biodiversity.
Explain why you want their support to End the Cull.
Need help with your letter? Use our How to Write to your MP letter-writing tips. Find facts about the cull on our website.
2. Create an End the Cull poster to display locally.
Use our badger A4 sheet as a base for your own End the Cull poster.
Display your poster so other people can see it.
Share a photo of your poster on your social media, tag #badgertrust and #endthecull or email a photo to hello@badgertrust.org.uk. We’ll share as many as we can.
3. Create and illustrate a ‘Three Fun Facts About Badgers’ factsheet.
Creating a badger factsheet is a perfect educational activity for kids of all ages.
Check out our Badger Education web page.
Watch the Secret Life of Badgers film and pick out three fun facts about badgers.
Use our badger A4 sheet as a base for your factsheet. Write in your fun fact – you can illustrate it, too.
Share your factsheet so other people can learn fun facts about badgers.
Further Information about the Badger Cull
The mass killing of native badgers is part of a government-led policy to control bovine TB in farmed cattle.
Natural England released figures last week confirming that government-licensed shooters have killed over 230,000 protected badgers during the past 11 years.
The government has also released a ‘badger control consultation’ – closing 22 April 2024 – a policy u-turn that could usher in unrestrained badger killing with no end date.
The policy continues in England despite a lack of reliable scientific evidence to show that culling badgers reduces bTB in cattle.
Wales and Scotland do not cull badgers to control bTB in cows. With 94% of bTB spread due to cattle, Welsh and Scottish governments get better results by focusing on more effective on-farm cattle measures, such as restricting cattle movements, improving biosecurity and better cattle testing.
