High-profile sab network Hunt Investigation Team has issued an ‘urgent appeal’ for money.
The group recently trespassed on an estate in Derbyshire. Police are investigating allegations that its members tampered with traps and hid trailcams on private land. HIT then organised an online persecution campaign targeting a young gamekeeper it wrongly accused of crimes after a badger was accidentally caught in a snare.
Now HIT is asking followers for cash so it can expose “a case of wildlife crime happening right now”.
“We need your help in order to deploy personnel and equipment on the ground to expose these criminals immediately,” says a post on Facebook pointing to a crowdfunding website.
The sabs describe themselves as “covert surveillance specialists, professional and strategic” who are “on the front line in the fight against wildlife crime and cruelty”.
On its GoFundMe page, HIT states its “undercover team go behind enemy lines where others dare not”.
It posted a video of the badger found on the Moscar Estate being released by one of its masked members.
The group also tells followers to watch out for another snare site “just yards from the boundary of Wyming Brook Nature Reserve”.
The post accused gamekeepers of “deliberately targeting the wildlife that lives in the reserve”, despite the snare being on private land on the Moscar Estate and legal.
“Please monitor this site for wildlife crime and cruelty,” HIT asks, encouraging people to trespass on the estate.
