“Let’s see how they like being hunted,” said Stop The Cull on its Facebook page, the day after a post was removed for revealing personal information about people supposedly involved in badger culls.
Exactly how the people will be ‘hunted’ it does not explain, but the post echoes fanatical rhetoric that triggers alarm bells at law enforcement agencies around the world. A specialist crime unit is said to have taken over the investigation.
‘We want information’: Stop The Cull’s vigilante action
The animal rights extremists exposed the names, addresses, phone numbers and emails of dozens of people in South-West England. In internet speak, this is called ‘doxing’.
The group sees the removal of its post as a positive sign and not a stamp of disapproval for breaking netiquette and perhaps some real life laws.
Facebook deleted the post, although it is still on the group’s website for everyone to see and the few thousand regular supporters of STC to digest so they can revel in the disruption of legal pest control.
Some of the people on STC’s hit list report that the data is out of date and, in some cases, has been online for years.
Nothing to see: this is one of the lists published, but reveals little
That doesn’t stop the group from declaring a minor victory, by complaining the government has gone back on a promise to lower culls.
“When we get a post removed by facebook, we know we are on the right track!” the follow-up post declares. “Yesterday we posted a link to our innocent badger website which has a map of hundreds of badger killing shooters on it, they are VERY unhappy, it contains their addresses, mobile phone numbers and emails.”
In a desperate plea, the group offers cash for information – true or not – so it can expose anyone who might harm a badger in the smallest way. Whether they do appears irrelevant.
“Now we want MORE! we want links for any social media accounts, work details, birthdays, convictions, nasty rumours etc etc send them in anonymously to us, and if you don’t know any of them but live in the area, drop us an email, we will be making up posters with individuals named so that any passing locals who see it can pass on info.”
A crude wild west-style graphic in Stop The Cull’s Facebook post threatens ongoing persecution of anyone on their hit list – regardless of the level of their involvement in culls. That post was also removed by Facebook.
In the comments, Sheila Woods noted: “If they don’t like anyone to know what they do, they know it’s wrong,” forgetting that almost all sabs and antis wear masks when carrying out their intimidating and often illegal operations.
We’re inserting a badger lamping video here for the benefit of STC.
STC claims the data was leaked to the group but will not say which organisation it came from.
Anyone concerned about persecution from antis can get find advice on how to deal with them here: FieldsportsChannel.tv/howtodealwithantis/
