BvTB

If the work so far in In Flux could be described as a form of gathering, drawing a parallel with hunter-gatherer societies, where I am looking for elements of interest, i.e.. signs of change in the environment that are passive rather than active ( equivalents to sweet chestnuts, or blackberries, gathered through photographic means), that I then repeatedly re-visit and follow through time-lapse photography, then this project could be described as hunting. In fact, it is hunting, not with a weapon, a gun or a blow-pipe, but through trapping.

As one of the initial objectives of this research has been to find better ways to interpret the environment through photography, particularly grasping some current cultural environmental concerns, then it is logical to test my approaches gained through research and practise in a suitably current, pertinent situation. So, when I was asked if I would like to photograph the processes involved in the vaccination of badgers, by my friend and ecologist Dave Mayer, at the beginning of last summer, I saw that here was just such an opportunity to to test whether or not I had reached a point where I am able to offer a more connected and communicable approach to an active environmental dilemma that is effecting the rural life of Britain through arts practise.

The problem of Tuberculosis in cattle in Britain, Bovine TB (BvTB), has reached a point were it impacting directly on the lives of cattle and badgers, the livelihoods of farmers and is costing the taxpayer. It is generally agreed in scientific circles that the spread of BvTB is linked to badgers, who also suffer from and spread the disease amongst their own populations and to cattle. What is not agreed is how to deal with this problem. As I write this two pilot schemes in Somerset and Gloucestershire to cull 70% of the badger populations in specific areas are coming to an end. These schemes go against the direct scientific advice commissioned by the British government about the feasibility of such a policy. Vaccinating the badger population from BvTB is the alternative to culling and this is what Dave does, some farmers and organisations like the Wildlife Trust are undertaking this work, who form his clientèle. I could at this point go further into all the disagreements and difficulties involved in this issue, but would be making a very long posting before I actually get to present the results of my first encounter with the process of  badger vaccination as undertaken by Dave, indeed, my first ever real encounters with badgers themselves. This is my reason for making this post.

Perhaps firstly I had better make it clear that I, and by extension, the work I produce, is not an attempt at an objective or unbiased viewpoint, I have my own thoughts and feelings about this, I am against the killing of badgers. This does not mean that I do not have sympathy with or I am unwilling to engage with those who hold other opinions, or those that directly suffer (be they human or animal) as a result of bovine tuberculosis. Engaging in a project that entails me reflecting on and developing strong opinions and feelings should be a good position to be in, a good reason to investigate, interpret and communicate via visual means.

I certainly accept that I am beginning to undertake a journey that involves the gathering (or hunting out of?) information and experience that will be interpreted with visual art, mostly photographic works, but also short film works too.

So, to begin, I travelled to Stoke and stayed with Dave for about ten days, over which I was, in a sense, embedded with him as he undertook his work and introduced to the process, for it is very much a process in the environment. Unlike the work of In Flux, where I am undertaking a process in the environment (the making of artworks as an interpretation of my own perceptions of the environment), in this case I am engaging with another process, bringing two processes together, the making of the work and the trapping and vaccinating of badgers, for I was not just observing but also working with Dave, helping when he needed.

Starting this project I realised that there were three objectives competing for attention;

1.To produce work that would be integrated with the In Flux series (My initial impulse to do this work)

2.To investigate Badger vaccination and develop methods and methodologies that are appropriate to this issue.

3.To produce work that would help Dave and others promote their cause (Their is definitely a need to reciprocate the access and hospitality shown to me by being part of the project directly).

Bearing this in mind, I knew that there were going to be conflicts between these factors and accepted that in order to resolve them I will have to wear more than one hat when working and re-visit the project, allowing for gestation, processing and discussion to occur in the intervening periods before the project is satisfactorily resolved.

So, the work;

The first step is survey of the environment to be trapped. I was not present at the initial visits, but signs of badger activity and locations of set must be established and mapped. Along with the sets there are run-throughs, the more ephemeral signs of badger movements across the land.

Track-way #1

Run through #1

The lower work is a badger run-through, the upper piece the human equivalent, a track-way cut through brambles for us to access a set that we referred to appropriately as the brambles set.

       Track-way                                                                               Run-through

Again, a human track-way on the left and a badger run-through on the right. As well as the sets themselves, there are other signs, like badger hair caught on barbed wire (photographed but not presented here) or bedding dragged out of the set.

Set entrance with bedding

Obviously one of the sources of the problem. if cattle eat this, and the badger is infected with TB, then the possibility of passing on the disease is there.

Dave combines OS maps with  satellite images to make a map of the area, and in consultation with another ecologist, decides where to put out the traps. These maps and the subsequent relative positions are available to me to make work with. At this stage I do not see this as a priority, although it is there as a possibility. First of all I wish to concentrate on what happens at the sites and how this occurs. This process, like my own practise in In Flux, involves repeated site visits but over a shorter time span, days rather than the months or even years of In Flux. Nevertheless, change does occur, In the daytime the humans (and the cattle) occupy the space, whereas at night, the badgers roam, leaving their own signs of activity.  This day/night dichotomy is something yet to be addressed. I think I am right in assuming that my presence at night on these sites would be detrimental to the vaccinating process, disturbing the badgers and making it harder to trap them, so on the specific sites this would not be viable, so this is one of the questions that arises from this first visit, how do I get a sense of or for the nocturnal nature of the badgers? Which leads me to my first instinct-how can I make work that reflects upon the badgers viewpoint? How does a badger perceive the environment?

They are lower to the ground (and often underneath it in sets)
They are very short sighted
Their sense of smell is 700 times better than a dogs

In addition they are very social animals, living in family groups and interacting with other badgers.

I decided that I would work close to the ground and use a shallow depth of field, but found that this was not always feasible. When working with others and trying to fulfil more than one objective, then time becomes much more of an issue. Speed was important, as well as actually engaging in the process myself rather than leaving this to Dave and on a couple of days, his assistants Cheryl and Claire. I will pursue this low perspective further in future.

At the centre of this process are the traps themselves. This is the locus of activity. Early on I decided to make works looking into the traps.

Traps at the first stage

At first the traps are just put in place and bait (badgers love peanuts) scattered around, inside and under a stone at the entrance to tempt them in. The traps are not set but fixed open. This is a point in the process where you get a sense of the beginning of a hunt, that we were beginning to manipulate the actions of the badgers to our own ends. It starts with Dave's experience and in no small amount his intuition. I will ask him to explain how he decides were, and how much it is obvious, (next to a set is obvious, but were next to a set?) What subtle inter-plays are at work? As Dave points out, badgers are wild animals and not as predictable as one might assume. It is obvious to me that Dave is developing a relationship to the badgers, a complex one worth investigating further.

Baited

After the night has passed we return in the morning and check if the peanuts are gone. If so, then the traps are" dug in", which means that they are filled with soil and made secure, peanuts are liberally spread around and the stone moves inside the entrance of the trap with a pile of peanuts underneath. Again it is not set. I made many attempts to create composite works of the inside of the traps, the above is the only one that was anywhere near successful. I now think that this was over complicating things and in future I will find a comparative method with single images, more in keeping with the three images above. This interior space of the trap, with  it associated confinement and a view, from the position of the trapped, of the environment around , has enough further potential to get at some of the subtleties around this process and the wider context.
The baiting process usually occurs at least four times, as the stone with the bait is gradually moved to the back of the trap, each time the trap is left overnight and checked for activity. The decision to set a trap depends on the frequency of badger visits and it location, for instance, if a trap is very close to an active set then it will continue to be baited, but never set, as a trapped badger near a set will probably cause undue stress to other badgers in the group. A trap is set using string.

Setting

Set

The work,Setting, above, is one I will have to consider. If this composite, temporal work of a process is to be included in this work, then others may have to be made. This project has marked a return to using single images, when appropriate. It has also included the making of film works too, something that was not envisaged at the beginning. This was as a result of a suggestion by Dave that I film the process, largely for training purposes, but also for general publicity. This link will re-direct to the video on you tube;

setting the trap

The video was the first shot and in many ways the most successful. Obviously the temptation is to fulfil a desire to show the full process and an earlier piece included a video from a similar position of a badger being vaccinated and then released (see below). The combined video needed something more to act as a transition between the setting of the trap and the vaccination, the most obvious being the badger being trapped. This would be difficult to film and would require specialist equipment. Something that needs further consideration.

As I mentioned above one of my aspirations is to make works that will sit well within the In Flux project, so I followed the same methods of making composite images of the element of interest  in the environment, the traps from the outside. Then followed this up with time-lapse. I had a more formed idea of what I wanted here, working toward an imagined, conceptualised work. Perhaps because of this I have encountered some friction between what I imagined and subsequently encountered in actuality. The idea was changing as I experienced the process, as I state above, I found myself working with the idea of incorporating my imagined idea of how a badger would perceive the environment and this clashed with the already established methods in In Flux. I think a period of gestation and consultation is needed to resolve this.
There were two different approaches here, firstly I needed a quick method that fits with the work being undertaken as I travelled around the 40 or so traps around the environment under scrutiny with Dave. Here I do not use a tripod but shoot composites quickly and then in post processing I use another method from the usual (Aligning and blending in steps rather than using a fuller form of automation) to achieve the results;

Trap # 8 below (bracken trap) and trap # 19 (nettle trap) above (Dave's numbering)

Trap #8 (Bracken trap) with badger

I am surprised to find that these works are more successful than the more conventionally produced works, at least at this stage;

Baited trap

This may yet prove suitable. Other pieces were made but this was the most successful. The initial idea was to have a trap with a badger in it, but this proved to be too time consuming to make under the circumstances.

The first day of trapping arrived and it was pouring rain. Each of us headed out at dawn to check the traps individually before proceeding to the vaccination and release. Dave instructed us not to disturb a badger if it was in the trap and to close the traps that were empty. I felt a rush of adrenalin, when, alone I saw my first trapped badger. The hunt was successful. We had a further four more that day. In the rain and under time constraints I didn't make any work but proceeded to check further traps and reported back to Dave.

 There are a sequence of events in the process of vaccination;

Injection

 Clipping hair

 Marking

























Followed at the end by release.

This process is distressing for the badger and is undertaken quickly and quietly. Beyond documenting the process in this way, suitable for Dave to use in his own work, I am not sure how they sit in the interpretive context of this project. It is hard not to just be an observer, again some thought needed. Perhaps the film is a better way of presenting, although the following work suffers a little from the camera angle in comparison with the earlier piece on setting the trap;

vaccination

There is very little time for making work between that moment when the trap is opened and the badger making a run for it, but it is an interesting process, varying between badgers. Sometimes the badger needs to be coaxed out by Dave, whilst in other cases you can observe the badger realising that the trap is open and plucking up the courage to run. Sometimes they look directly at the camera, at me if I am behind it. There is a sense that they are judging the situation. I am reminded here of Tim Ingold's description of the Cree hunters' relationship to their prey, that there is a moment of recognition between them. "At the crucial moment of eye-to-eye contact, the hunter felt the overwhelming presence of the animal; he felt as if his own being were somehow bound up or intermingled with that of the animal"1 This short duration with the badger is the time when I resolutely feel the badger's being as a living thing, and have a sense of connection to it, something that needs to be teased out of this work;

This is the point that the badger decided to dash for freedom, just after pausing to assess the situation.

Finally the badger is not the whole of this issue, as Dave clearly understands and formed many of our discussions together. They are part of a triangle, of which the other two elements are tuberculosis and cattle. How to visualise, or otherwise interpret these elements is one of the next steps in this work;

Badger's view of cattle

Trapped

I have photographed the vaccine bottles but know that further work is needed both on the cattle and on an interpretation of tuberculosis, work that may be studio based in the case of TB, and may involve photographing cattle being tested for TB.

After the last release

To end I would like to thank Dave Mayer of Ecology one-stop for inviting me to work with him and I look forward to further work when the vaccinating season starts again in the spring.

1. Ingold T. (2000) The perception of the environment; essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge, London and New York P.25