Photocredit : Laura Daligan (me, Laura and Oephebia Animal Healer)
“Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.” ” The Wind in The Willows” by Kenneth Grahame
I do not think Badger would have hated a sector of society on 1st June 2013.
Yesterday in London we were blessed by good weather. There was a wonderful turnout as people congregated wearing black and white clothes, badger tee shirts ,painted faces carrying banners, ballooons, toys and accompanied by dogs wearing bandanas to be a united presence and voice for our scapegoated badgers. It is a lovely feeling, marching through London with likeminded people. You have not met most of them before but that does not matter. You are in immediate harmony with them because you know that you all share the same love and passion for a cause. We were accompanied by a police escort (who also turned up in black and white to show solidarity with our badger friends hahaha)
Brian May gave a wonderful talk on why we were there and why we need to keep on campaigning, networking, educating and protesting about this war on terra animals until this unnecessary cull is an ex cull.
Virginia Mckenna also energised the crowd with a wonderful talk.
We started off at Tate Britain, Millbank (which a friend called “Badger HQ”) and ended at The Sanctuary House SW1 which was very apt. This is what the badgers need. A place of refuge and safety. They are being attacked in their homes for no valid reason.
A mythical animal listened to Brian May. Unicorns are magical creatures that take us back to childhood and represent purity and innocence. They symbolise the Moon which reflects the light of the Sun so evoke the concepts of opposites, light and dark, death and life, them and us..
Some dogs came along too
The dog below is Pudding. he was a badger baiting dog which is why he has facial injuries but he was out to support the badgers and raise awareness about their plight.
We then went to Parliament as this is where we need to win the hearts and minds of the politicians who hold the fate of our badgers in their claws.
En route we met other animals who were showing their support
The cull is going ahead at present. If you are free on Wednesday go to the House Of Commons and lobby your MP or contact your MP before then ““Labour is calling a vote on the cull next Wednesday and we will be working with MPs from all parties to stop this crazy scheme. We need a science-led policy to manage cattle movements better and prioritise badger and cattle vaccination to tackle bovine TB instead of a cull.”The wording for the motion reads ‘This House believes the badger cull should not go ahead.’ In the meantime there are people out trying to protect the badgers. We must stop this cull. We will.
The Artful Badger who performed the Love The Badger Dance outside Parliament in October 2012 were there and managed to upstage and uproot the EDL by chasing them around the streets.
https://rosedixon.net/2012/10/21/love-the-badger-dance-at-parliament-square/
I will end this post with another quote from Kenneth Grahame from “The Wind in The Willows” Badgers are being attacked as they leave their homes. Unless the senseless cull is quashed there is no sanctuary for them.
“He saw clearly how plain and simple – how narrow, even – it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.”
RoseDixon.net 