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Conspiracy theories have come into their own these past few years. There was a time there where you wouldn’t know anyone who questioned what they saw with their own eyes or took it upon themselves to go into battle on random scientific issues but now if you don’t personally know someone who’s into that sort of thing, you probably do know someone who does.
And, it’s at this point that I need to come clean.
I’m not entirely sure I believe in badgers.
I’ve never seen one myself, for a start. And I was in a primary classroom only recently where pupils were showing off projects on Irish wildlife which included a presentation on the animal in question. But when questioned, the presenters admitted to never having seen one either nor had anyone else in the class or indeed the class teacher.
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In fact, the only eyewitness accounts I’ve ever come across involve dead specimens at the side of a road. And let’s face it, this reeks of stage management. I mean when questioned, none of these witnesses made any attempt to leap out of the car to check for a pulse. Nobody tried to administer even the most perfunctory first aid or perform an impromptu autopsy. And anyway, on a very practical level, can dead bodies be interpreted as proof of life?
I’m not claiming to have scoured the countryside looking for badgers but I haven’t been completely city-bound either. I’ve seen plenty of birds and cows and deer and a lone red squirrel. And thinking about it now, I’ve never seen hedgehogs either but somehow that doesn’t count so much because they’re small and brown and cute, although clearly not cuddly and pretty much mobile homes for fleas by all accounts, and it’s because of their size and ability to blend in that it’s entirely plausible that I may well have missed them, walked right by them, as good as gave them the cold shoulder.
But the word on the street, or rather in the wood, is that badgers are big. I’ve looked this up and it seems badgers are somewhere in the region of 90cm in length.
That’s almost a metre. A metre-long lump of shuffling and snuffling. And they are slow, for the most part. They might be able to move niftily enough when the mood is on them but they’re not exactly renowned for their zippiness. Nobody has ever been meandering down a country lane and upon hearing the crackle of a branch, swung around only to catch a glimpse of something black and white whizzing through the undergrowth and immediately thought, “Aha! A badger!”
So being fleet of foot is not exactly their thing. And therein lies the problem. I’ve been wandering around this island for over half a century now, so how come I’ve never bumped into one? How come I’ve never turned a corner and gone, “Oh dear, another badger. Why, oh why are there so many badgers?”
And yes, I get the whole nocturnal argument. Apparently badgers go about their business in the hours of darkness so they’re hard to spot.
But I’ve had my nocturnal moments too, you know. I’ve been known to stay up past my bedtime on occasion but have I ever encountered this lumbering beast? Not once.
I rest my case.
I feel we need to look to our Celtic cousins here. They're really good at this sort of thing. The Scots have embraced the unicorn as their national animal. Added to which, they've managed to convince untold numbers of tourists that a dinosaur of sorts is hanging around at the bottom of a lake.
And they do this without a hint of a glint in the eye. No knowing smile. No quiet chuckle. In fact, on quiet evenings they’re probably out there at airports and bus stops and train stations, handing out directions as to where the nearest herd of those horned, mythical creatures can be found prancing about – most probably somewhere in the highlands.
We need to take a leaf from their book. It seems we never got around to enlisting a national animal. I propose the badger. If it turns out they actually exist, super. If they don’t, what of it? We can still stamp their image on plates and keyrings and tea towels and make a killing.
And in the meantime, let’s keep our wits about us when out and about. And live sightings only, please.