BY GARY BAXTER

I have had eeefuckinnough. This winter has done it for me. It’s not so much the weather either. 

So what erks me you ask?

Tread mighty careful if you dare ask, as I am getting as growly as the Deputy Prime Minister’s ginger growler.

So let me begin… 

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North of the border an outbreak of oversized pussy cats in the hills. Who the hell let the lynx out!? Who are they trying to kid? A lynx taking out a red stag with a decent hat rack … are these people sharp? Not in my opinion, no they bloody well are not!! The calves … I can understand a nice easy target for them. But for God’s sake to just DUMP THEM OUT in the wild??? I hope those found get prosecuted or was this a planned release on the QT (nod, nod, wink, wink, say no more REWILDERS we won’t get found out we are all right under the Labour townies, Jack!) Bloody wrong you were. It’s a crying shame that one of those beautiful creatures had to die because of your blatant, bloody stupidity. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

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Now it’s pigs turning up all over the ruddy show!!! Are those up North totally flaming insane? Your ground nesting birds are under enough pressure. You lot in charge up there have no idea the damage to your flora and fauna they can do and yet again from what I see it’s the landowners and managers who are clearing up YOUR BLOODY MESS. Nobody knows where the wild oinkers come from and they just appeared?? What in a flaming Tardis dropped off by aliens??!! Again, you may be all for animal rights but you don’t know the first thing about animal welfare. You are not stewards of the British Countryside, you are pie-eyed dipsticks of the first order and don’t know the first thing about Nature nor her indifference.

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Lunacy at home is also well under way. In our corner of the county we have had flash floods again ripping through our little Northamptonshire village damaging our village hall and many houses. But no bugger wants to do much about it apart from a bunch of spliffhead muppets called THE RAIN PROJECT who want to plant trees all over the shop – more on this in a bit. Perhaps even worse, the geniuses in Northampton want to put yet more houses on flood plains – that greedy lot will never learn – up periscope is all I can say. Why Northampton? Slough needs a damn good wash not Northamptonshire.

Now this week the Brenda’s Beaver Trust have eventually got their way and brought down from North of the border 4 brace of flat tailed tree chewing razor tooth chainsaws!! (I think we have cause to prosecute for dumping of vermin). Now I do know that in Scotland these lovely little fur balls are presently causing that much damage that they are being SHOT! The likes of Packham should be up there sniffing beavers to highlight their massacre.

These animals have virtually stopped the salmon and sea trout runs to the spawning grounds with their dams. They have flooded that much ground, it’s ridiculous. I have spoken to a friend of mine in the appropriate area of expertise on the day these creatures were released and he gave it 6 months before they are out on the Nene River system. My mate told me the EA are getting NO MORE CASH to repair lost equipment, flood defences or anything this year. We have had flooding all along our valley for weeks on end now. This is an agricultural apocalypse in the making!!! It turns out this 17 hectare enclosure cost …wait for it (Ed put your scotch down) …. 70 ruddy thousand pounds for 8 beavers. Do these people not understand these creatures breed and will eventually get out onto the main river? It’s a sodding navigation channel – boats, canoes and all that sort of thing!! It’s a feeder from the Grand Union Canal at Northampton. You can get out to the wash and the fens, the Ouse and the Norfolk broads!! There are thousands of river boats that use the river every year. WHO is going to pay to remove the trees? The Beaver Trust??? I doubt it!! 

Let’s go worst case scenario and the blighters come downstream and block our brook that flows into the Nene. Nobody cares that we get a flash flood with all the extra run off from Corby? That’s 4 villages in the target zone. 4 FLAMIN VILLAGES, or don’t you clowns understand that? Are you insured as a Trust for damage caused by your plans? I honestly doubt it!! You’ve got your heads up your arses. I hope you get sued to oblivion for the damage you are causing. All these trees that people like THE RAIN PROJECT are planting will be chewed flat and converted to dams causing yet more grief. Of course they can’t see the reality as they have their view obscured by a cloud of skunk smoke. And be sure that when it all screws up, it won’t be real socialism rewilding.

^{Ah but that’s not real socialism rewilding!}

So now in years to come we find beavers on the fens digging into the dykes getting into the old small willow woods like those near Whittlesey and Crowland. Then one night a dyke blows out and, oops, umpteen thousand acres go underwater like what happened last year due to stripey even though those who did the pest control for the EA said it was due to FOX (bloody idiots!!). That ground is prime agricultural land owned by small fenland farmers. You know the ones – the fine men and women who feed this country like my distant relatives do. I call them ‘distant’ as she lives out there on the windy bogland (I will be in hospital next week with a bar of soap stuck in my gob if she sees this, Ed). I mean real farmers, the salt of the earth – the true workers of this great land who that Dipstick Starmer – the sweaty bollard – wants to exterminate. What will they do then on their land? Synchronised swimming?

I am now shopping for some beaver traps online just in case. And I confess that at my age I was sure my beaver hunting days were well and truly over…

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Gary Baxter is the son of a gamekeeper, is an ex gamekeeper and has run his own falconry based bird control business for the last 20 years.