'Killing for fun': Inside the sick world of badger baiting as bloodsport surges across Greater Manchester beauty sports

Badger baiting. A cruel sport where badgers are terrorised, hunted and killed. Increasing cases of badger baiting are causing untold damage to our wildlife, with hundreds of badgers being killed every year.


A year ago, on April 28 2021, a volunteer was brutally attacked with spades by a gang of five thugs who were digging out a badger sett in Bolton. He was hospitalised, and left with numerous injuries which required plastic surgery.

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, volunteer Daniel said that a year on nothing has changed. “I have been attacked before by them, they left me for dead. The police didn’t have enough information, evidence, witnesses to proceed with the case so they dropped it,” he said.

Daniel said he got in touch with his local badger group, the Lancashire Badger Group, and became a volunteer and then a member. Their activities include going on walks and looking for new badger setts, logging them and recording them so they know where they are.

They also check how many badgers there are, as well as if they have any cubs, and see if there are any buildings being built around them which could affect the setts. The biggest problem he said they deal with, though, is badger baiting. “We just have to keep reporting it to the police,” he said.

“People can keep an eye out for those baiting badgers, looking for groups of people with torches and dogs and spades going into the woods at night. In south Manchester it's rife, especially in places like Reddish Vale Park.”

He said that groups are wanting police forces, including Greater Manchester Police to prioritise the offences more. “It’s going on constantly, there is a massive problem with GMP, we call up about it and they don’t even know what it is, and we have to explain what the Protecting the Badger Act is. They often don't record it as a wildlife crime either, instead recording it as criminal damage or miscellaneous.”