Tag: tom langton

The Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice has awarded renowned ecologist and wildlife campaigner Tom Langton (with whom we’ve recorded a couple of very insightful podcasts over the last four years) permission to challenge an important aspect of the 2020 “Next Steps” Bovine TB eradication policy. Tom is a professional conservation ecologist with experience in wildlife justice, and has helped bring Natural England & Defra to account in tribunals & High Court trials over badger culling since 2017. Cruel, unnecessary badger killings will massively increase from now until 2026, with huge new cull areas. Already 140,000 badgers have been shot and this will now double to around 280,000. Following on from these culls, there is a little mentioned long term policy to expand the extermination of badgers locally with reactive-style culling of 100% of badgers. This will be happening in and around our woods, fields and nature areas, perhaps even close to where you live, with multiple side effects and implications. It just has to stop.

Tom Langton is a highly respected ecologist who has been involved in many different wildlife disputes including Sizewell, the Pont Valley in County Durham, and perhaps most notably, the government-backed mass killing of badgers. Now Tom has launched a Crowdfunder which Mark Avery has backed, saying on his hugely influential blog that Tom is “a Badger expert and seasoned campaigner. His crowdfunder to challenge DEFRA on plans to extend the Badger cull deserves support – and I’ve put a few quid of my own in that direction.” And so have we….