Terriermen abandon their appeal against conviction for interfering with an active badger sett

Last year two terriermen for the Eggesford Hunt were convicted for interfering with an active badger sett. Seward Folland and Nathan Bowes were due to attend Exeter Crown Court today to appeal their conviction but they made a last-minute decision to abandon their appeal.

The case was based on video evidence we filmed, which showed Folland and Bowes digging-out a badger sett after Eggesford Hunt (under the instruction of huntsman Jason Marles) had just chased a fox to ground. Bowes and Folland now remain convicted wildlife criminals, and Folland, who had proudly stated that he “works for the government” as part of the badger cull, has lost his badger culling licence. He is still a parish councillor for Puddington! Bowes already had a caution for a badger sett dig-out we filmed the previous year.

In court last year Folland and Bowes confirmed that their role with the hunt was to dig-out foxes two or three days per week. They didn’t even attempt to deny it. As any follower of our page knows, the vast majority of dig-outs we witness take place at badger setts. If you multiply the number of foxhunts in Devon by the average number of days each hunt goes out per week during the season, that amounts to 1710 foxhunting days per year in Devon alone.

The hunts we sab dig-out anywhere between 1 and 5 times per hunting day. So that’s anywhere between 1700 and 8500 badger setts potentially being blocked, dug or completely destroyed by Devon hunts each year.

Badger sett interference is a serious wildlife crime and one of the national wildlife crime policing priorities. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who are the main perpetrators.

We worked with Devon & Cornwall Police to bring this case and we have more currently in the pipeline.

Although we are proud of this conviction and will continue to bring cases to trial where we can, our top priority remains saving lives through direct action.

Until laws are strengthened, sentences are brought in that have more of a deterrent effect, and police dedicate more resources to detecting and prosecuting wildlife criminals, direct action remains the main line of defence for our wildlife.

We will be doing a new round of recruitment shortly for the upcoming season, so get in touch if you’d like to join us in the field.

This is the link to our original post about the dig-out, containing some of the video footage that resulted in the conviction: