Illegal badger baiting cruelty exposed

Warning: Contains disturbing scenes of a badger being attacked.

Following a six-month undercover operation by journalist John Mooney and the Ulster SPCA, the Sunday Times in 2009 exposed the horrors of badger baiting in Ireland. The newspaper found that, despite being illegal, badger baiting is "practised in almost every town in Ireland, both north and south" but that "there appears to be little or no enforcement of animal welfare and wildlife laws" in the Republic.

This video shows footage from the Sunday Times / Ulster SPCA undercover operation - filmed in Co Down. Footage copyright Sunday Times/USPCA

If you have any information about badger baiting activities, please immediately report it to the Gardai. For the phone numbers of Garda stations, please visit: www.garda.ie/Stations/Default.aspx. If you are in Northern Ireland, contact the police at www.psni.police.uk

Urge the Minister for Justice to order a Garda crackdown on those involved in illegal cockfighting.

Minister Alan Shatter
Department of Justice and Equality
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01-6183911