This article is from page 9 of the 2013-09-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
A HIGH tech badger-baiting operation has been uncovered in East Clare with people using underground tracking devices to locate and kill families of badgers.
A small black terrier dog, equipped with the powerful mobile transmitter, was discovered in the O’Briensbridge area of the county yesterday. According to Clare County Council’s ISPCA dog warden, Frankie Coote, the dog was being used to ferret out the badgers and lead groups of “hunters” to their sets.
It is understood that this sort of equipment would be used by serial badger baiters who would travel the countryside searching for badger sets to attack. The baiters could be invited by a farmer on the land, but, according to Mr Coote, they often enter property uninvited in order to kill badgers for the illegal blood-sport.
“I have the dog and the collar with the tracking device and this dog was clearly used for digging out badgers. This is a very high tech device – they track the dogs movements underground and then they go in and kill the older badgers and the younger defenseless badgers in the set,” said Mr Coote. “We can tell that the dog has been used for this a lot. She is blind in one eye and has several old wounds and more recent wounds. This is an underground blood sport in the same way that dog fighting is underground.
“It is a problem. We believe that there are four or five underground groups that participate in this in Clare. Sometimes they would be invited in by farmers to remove the badgers, because the farmers are worried that they [the badgers] might be carrying TB, but in some cases they go in without the knowledge of the farmers.
“These people are just doing this because they get a kick out of killing the badgers. The are the same people might set two dogs to fight each other and bet on which dog would win the fight.
“This is cruelty for the badgers and the dog. This dog is destroyed from the fighting. She has a lovely temperament but she has been trained to be involved in this awful thing.”
Badgers are naturally docile creature but when cornered they can turn into dangerous fighting animals. Badger baiting has been illegal in Ireland for decades but the NPWS has secured ten convictions for the illegal persecution of badgers since 1993.