National Day of Action Against the Badger Cull called for Tuesday, 3 September 2024

Badger Trust Staff Team
Jul 23, 2024
2 min read

As the intensive slaughter begins again, a mass lobby of MPs will follow a demonstration outside Parliament and multiple anti-cull petition presentations to Defra.

Badger Trust and our allies plan a National Day of Action against the badger cull on Tuesday, 3 September 2024.

Wildlife groups around the UK will come together in a powerful display of unity to call for the new government to end the cull as intensive badger killing begins again.

Bovine TB is a cattle problem, and the solutions lie in the herd, not by blaming badgers. Over 230,000 badgers have already been killed, and the first week of September marks the start of another intensive cull season.

The urgency of this situation cannot be overstated. This ineffective and unethical killing of badgers must stop immediately.

What’s happening on Tuesday, 3 September?

On the morning of 3 September, we will join our allies to present petitions containing thousands of names calling for an end to the cull to Defra Secretary of State Steve Reed MP at the Defra offices.

From 11 am to 2 pm, supporters will gather in Parliament Square, where we will hold a peaceful demonstration against the badger cull.

From 1.30 pm, supporters will enter Parliament for a mass lobby of MPs and call for an immediate end to the ineffective and unethical cull.

We welcome people joining us in London on the 3rd, but if you cannot make it, then please make an appointment to see your newly elected MP that week to tell them that you, and the majority of the British people, want to see an immediate end to the cruel badger killing.

Crowd of reasonable people with placards outside the Houses of Parliament making thier feelings known about the badger cull. Text: End the Cull National Day of Action 3 September 2024

Together we must end the cull.

Peter Hambly, Chief Executive of Badger Trust, commented:

“Badger Trust and our allies hope this day is not needed. We want the Labour Government to follow the statement in their own Manifesto and stop this “ineffective badger cull”.

Allowing badger slaughter under pre-existing cull licences when they already know the cull is ineffective is not morally, scientifically or financially acceptable. Killing wild animals to appease powerful lobby groups should not trump science.

It’s not the badgers’ fault; they are scapegoats for a failed policy to control England’s cattle-to-cattle spread disease problem. This new government has the power to put that right. Over a decade of killing under the previous government has had little effect on the relentless spread of bovine TB in cows, and so this disastrous slaughter of protected badgers has to stop.

September marks the start of another intensive cull with thousands of badgers at risk of being shot in fields up and down England. The new government has to decisively end the cull and end it now.”