It’s frightening that there still seems to be a widespread misunderstanding of some of Britain’s native species leaving me wondering where the education system and media are failing us. Take badgers for example, an absolutely iconic species that are seemingly glossed over by the education system and put across in the media as vicious animals that tear around the country in large numbers spreading TB to anything they come into contact with.
It makes me wonder whether another approach is needed to try to make people see things from a different perspective. What if we viewed the world through their eyes?
Barney woke, it was dark, and the air was warm, his bed was cosy and dry, his siblings still soundly asleep around him. He got up, stretched, and slowly headed outside. The air was crisp, and the sun was just setting making the woodland around his home a sea of different shades of grey. He sniffed the air, checking for any unusual smells, but all he smelled was the usual sweet smell of the autumnal woodland. Barney slowly emerged, had his usual early evening stretch and scratch, and waited for his siblings to rise.
It didn’t take long before Barney’s siblings awoke and all gradually emerged from their underground home to greet him. Their home consisted of a complex maze of underground tunnels and chambers, with the occasional escape route, just in case, but they just called it a sett. Being badgers, Barney and his siblings started the night in their usual manner, with a bit of sociable play and grooming, before getting on to the housekeeping. Being clean, houseproud creatures, the badgers regularly cleaned out their old bedding and tidied the tunnel systems of the sett to ensure there were no collapses and that all the chambers and entrances were accessible. This regular housekeeping ensured that their home, which had been used by their clan for generations, would be there for many more.
Once the clan had finished their daily bonding, Barney’s mind turned to food. He decided that he would head out to the grassland near the lake. The grassland was full of food to forage on, and conveniently located to mark their eastern boundary. Marking the boundary was an important task that Barney and his siblings took turns carrying out, if they didn’t mark their boundaries there would be nothing to stop their neighbours stealing their best foraging areas. Barney knew that once he had finished foraging there was a small outlying sett, a one or two entrance sett used occasionally when the badgers were away from their main sett, a few hedgerows from the grassland.
Barney set off through the woodland, following one of the clan’s well-worn paths through the undergrowth. As he went Barney picked off bits of food here and there, enough to keep him going, but he wanted to save himself for the plentiful pickings near the lake. A quick snuffle along the path edge rewarded him with a juicy worm, he followed this with a sweet blackberry as he pushed under a dense area of bramble.
As Barney approached the edge of the woodland, he was extra vigilant. In recent years there had been changes to the clan’s territory; where there used to be open fields and hedgerows, rich with food leading towards their eastern boundary, the land had rapidly changed. Large structures had quickly sprung up and the soft ground had been replaced with a hard surface. The changes had been caused by humans and the whole area smelled of them and their dogs. There was also another smell, a strange smell that Barney didn’t know, it often followed the passage of one of the bright-eyed beasts that were constantly patrolling the area around the structures. The hard ground was the territory of the beasts, they never strayed or chased, but they were deadly if they caught you crossing their terrain.
Barney crouched at the edge of the woodland and waited. He saw a distant light and heard a howl as one of the beasts approached. He moved further back into the woodland to make sure that he was hidden as the beast screamed past at an unbelievable speed. Once it had passed and its wails had died down, its smell lingered and stung his nose. Barney took another look around, the coast was clear so he ran for the undergrowth on the other side of the hard ground.
The smell of humans died down as Barney continued to follow the hedgerows out towards the lake, and their eastern boundary. Barney stuck to the hedgerow despite the large open fields around him. It was common knowledge within the clan that these lands weren’t good for foraging anymore. Despite the uniform plants that grew the soil was barren and no matter how much you snuffled, there was no food to be found. Occasionally, as the badgers passed through these areas the ground was wet and the air had a strange, sweet smell. The badgers knew not to linger at these times. There were stories that the sweet smell was deadly and was the reason the land had become devoid of life.
Eventually, Barney emerged in the grasslands near the lake. He decided he would quickly head to the other side of the lake to mark their territory and then he could concentrate on eating as much as he could from the luscious grassland for the rest of the night. He followed the path to their boundary; he was cautious as he approached because during a previous visit, he had encountered his neighbours where the territories met. He had got away without injury, but he didn’t want to fight again if he could help it. He smelled the air as he approached but couldn’t detect any other badgers. The territorial markings smelled fresh, he’d been lucky, someone from the neighbouring clan had already been this evening but they had moved on. Barney quickly marked the numerous latrines along the boundary, covering up the smell of the other badgers and securing their foraging for another night. Then, he headed for the lake and some well-deserved me time.
The foraging was good, the ground was damp and as he snuffled around, he found food was abundant. He nibbled his way through worms, beetles and larvae, gradually moving through the grassland completely enthralled by the delicious bugs that made up the majority of his diet.
Barney was so engrossed in the food that he didn’t notice the slight change in the odour of the air, he completely missed the noises, the scuffling and muttering that was unmistakable……humans! Suddenly the dark night lit up, Barney panicked, he knew it wasn’t the bright-eyed beasts, although they occasionally had one eye this was different. It followed him as he moved, there were no wailing sounds with it, no pungent smell.
He could hear noises behind the light, he knew them to be sounds from humans, but he couldn’t see where they were, the light was too bright. Then suddenly there was an almighty crack and the ground next to Barney erupted. Barney was terrified, he did the only thing he knew how to, he ran for his life, speeding through the grassland heading for the sett in the next hedgerow. As he went, he heard more cracks and occasionally the vegetation next to him exploded. Barney kept running, he expected the worst, expected to feel the sting as the unseen eruptions finally caught him.
To his surprise Barney burst through the hedgerow and dived for the entrance to the sett without feeling the painful bite of the magic that the humans were ambushing him with. He scurried deep into one of the chambers that he knew led to an escape tunnel back out of the sett, should he need it. He stayed there, heart racing, terrified that the sett wouldn’t protect him from the humans’ magic.
As time passed Barney’s fear subsided, he could smell the humans were still around, but he was protected by the tunnels of the sett. Barney couldn’t understand why the humans attacked them like they did, they had never done anything to the humans. Over the years the clan had lost several badgers to the humans’ magic and the beasts that roamed the ground around them. Between the loss of his siblings, the reducing foraging ground available due to the ever-encroaching structures and barren deserts of uniform plants, the badgers’ territory was constantly being threatened.
The only explanation he had heard for the human’s anger was through stories from the muttering of a mad old boar within the clan. The boar lived out in an outlying sett on the extremes of the western boundary, banished there because he constantly rambled on about the humans and their fear of the badgers, which unnerved the others and scared the cubs. He spoke about how humans claimed the badgers were infected with something called ‘Toobarkoloosis’, which they called it ‘TB’, and used something called a ‘kull’ to try to control the badgers and prevent the TB from spreading. The clan ignored the old boar, surely these were just crazy stories. Why would the humans, who were responsible for the hard ground and the encroaching structures, deal with this so-called TB with such a brutal method? Surely if they could make their structures, control the patrolling beasts that protected them, and had access to the magic they used to assault the badgers, they also had the ability to control this so-called TB. So why would they attack other animals that meant them no harm?
After what seemed like an eternity the smell of the humans subsided and Barney’s heart stopped racing. He carefully moved to the entrance of the sett, sniffing the air as he went. As he poked his head out of the sett entrance the air smelled fresh, he could see the light in the distance, morning was fast approaching. Although Barney’s belly rumbled, reminding him that he had been disturbed from happily foraging on the rich pickings of the grassland, he knew he could not risk any more foraging tonight. Barney turned and returned to the cosy chamber within the sett. He got comfortable, as comfortable as he could without the warmth of his siblings and the security of their main sett, and settled in for the day. Barney quickly drifted into a deep sleep, dreaming of a world where humans and badgers could live together peacefully……