Wild Justice #98

A happy St David’s Day morning to you all!

Thank you to everyone who has already contributed to our Badger crowdfunder – the crowdfunder total stands at over £18k already after just five days. That’s amazing – thank you.

The Northern Ireland Department responsible for planning this massive cull of Badgers, the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), failed to respond to our Pre-action Protocol letter last week but told us that ‘the Department expects to be in a position to furnish its substantive response to your pre-action correspondence on Monday 28 February‘. That was yesterday and nothing was received.

It’s difficult to know whether DAERA is preparing to concede the case or is simply floundering in its attempt to justify its Badger cull proposals. Our correspondence with DAERA started in September last year – none of our legal arguments can come as a surprise to them.

Wild Justice has warned DAERA that we may move on to filing papers with the court in the absence of any substantial and timely legal response from them, and that might well count against them as this legal challenge continues.

DAERA has also promised to issue a consultation on general licences in Northern Ireland in response to our previous successful legal challenge – see here. DAERA has promised that consultation in late February/early March and you’ll notice that it didn’t happen in late February. Do you see a pattern here?

Wild Justice is a tiny operation which challenges public bodies which have vast resources including their own dedicated government legal teams.  We will always aim to be fair in our legal challenges but we won’t be soft. DAERA, you are dragging your feet.

If you would like to contribute specifically to our Badger crowdfunder – click here.

If you like what we do and would like to make a general donation which will be used across our range of work, then please consider donating through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here.