| Founded | 2010 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Brian May and Anne Brummer |
| Focus | Animal welfare |
| Location | |
| Product | Giving Wild Animals a Voice |
Key people | Brian May, Founder Anne Brummer, CEO |
| Website | http://www.save-me.org.uk |
Save Me is an animal welfare organisation that campaigns against fox hunting and badger culling. It was founded in 2010 by Queen guitarist Brian May and Anne Brummer to campaign against the possible repeal of the Hunting Act in the UK. [1] [2] [3] The campaign is named after the song written by May that was a worldwide hit for Queen in 1980. [4]
There is a pro-hunting lobby in the UK that is seeking to have the 2004 Hunting Act repealed. Save Me campaigns to ensure that the Hunting Act is preserved.
Save Me is currently campaigning as Team Badger, a coalition of animal welfare organisations that have teamed up to fight the planned cull of badgers. The coalition consists of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, League Against Cruel Sports, Humane Society International/UK, Save Me, Stroud 100, Gloucestershire Against Badger Shooting, Animal Aid, Network for Animals, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Animal Defenders International, The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Conservatives against the Badger Cull, Born Free, Care for the Wild, International Animal Rescue and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
These organisations are united in their opposition to the UK Government's plans to cull badgers, and feel strongly that it is a misguided attempt to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB). If the cull does go ahead as planned, at least 70% of badgers in large areas of the country, many of them healthy, will be killed.
Sir Brian Harold May is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, animal welfare activist and astrophysicist. He achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist of the rock band Queen, which he co-founded with singer Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor. His guitar work and songwriting contributions helped Queen become one of the most successful acts in music history.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales which promotes animal welfare. The RSPCA is funded primarily by voluntary donations. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest and largest animal welfare organisation in the world, and is one of the largest charities in the UK. The organisation also does international outreach work across Europe, Africa and Asia.
The League Against Cruel Sports, formerly known as the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, is a UK-based animal welfare charity which campaigns to stop blood sports such as fox hunting, hare and deer hunting; game bird shooting; and animal fighting. The charity helped bring about the Hunting Act 2004 and Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, which banned hunting with hounds in England, Wales and Scotland.
Jonathan "Jonti" Picking, also known as Weebl and Mr Weebl, is a British Internet personality and Flash animator and is the creator of Weebl's Stuff.
The Hunting Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which bans the hunting of most wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, subject to some strictly limited exemptions; the Act does not cover the use of dogs in the process of flushing out an unidentified wild mammal, nor does it affect drag hunting, where hounds are trained to follow an artificial scent.
The Bow Group is a UK-based think tank promoting conservative opinion. Founded in 1951, it is the oldest group of its kind, counting many senior Conservative Party MPs and peers among its members. It represents a forum for political debate with its varied programme of events and official journal.
The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity that campaigns to "Keep Wildlife in the Wild". It protects wild animals in their natural habitat, campaigns against the keeping of wild animals in captivity and rescues wild animals in need. It also promotes compassionate conservation, which takes into account the welfare of individual animals in conservation initiatives. Born Free also creates and provides educational materials and activities that reflect the charity's values.
Vote-OK is a group of political activists which were active on the topic of hunting animals during the 2005, 2010 and 2015 general election campaigns in the United Kingdom.
Hunt sabotage is the direct action that animal rights activists and animal liberation activists undertake to interfere with hunting activity.
Culling is the process of segregating organisms from a group according to desired or undesired characteristics. In animal breeding, it is removing or segregating animals from a breeding stock based on a specific trait. This is done to exaggerate desirable characteristics, or to remove undesirable characteristics by altering the genetic makeup of the population. For livestock and wildlife, culling often refers to killing removed animals based on their characteristics, such as their sex or species membership, or as a means of preventing infectious disease transmission.
Anthony Juniper is a British campaigner, writer, sustainability adviser and environmentalist who served as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He was Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International from 2000 to 2008.
Wildlife and Countryside Link (Link) is the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England, bringing together voluntary organisations in the UK to protect wildlife, restore landscapes and the marine environment, and improve access to nature.
John Gordon Cooper KC is a British barrister specialising in human rights and criminal law, and a politician.
Badger culling in the United Kingdom is permitted under licence, within a set area and timescale, as a way to reduce badger numbers in the hope of controlling the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB). Humans can catch bTB, but public health control measures, including milk pasteurisation and the BCG vaccine, mean it is not a significant risk to human health. The disease affects cattle and other farm animals, some species of wildlife including badgers and deer, and some domestic pets such as cats. Geographically, bTB has spread from isolated pockets in the late 1980s to cover large areas of the west and south-west of England and Wales in the 2010s. Some people believe this correlates with the lack of badger control.
Badger Trust, formerly the National Federation of Badger Groups (NFBG), is an animal welfare charity operating in England and Wales. It represents around fifty local badger groups dedicated to the conservation and protection of the European badger. It states that it is the leading voice for badgers and that its charitable aim is to promote and enhance the welfare, conservation and protection of badgers, their setts and their habitats.
Brian Davies was a Welsh animal welfare activist who founded three major international animal welfare organizations, Network for Animals (NFA), Animal Survival International (ASI) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Davies retired from the IFAW in 2003, but remained active at the NFA and ASI.
"Save the Badger Badger Badger" is a mashup of Jonti Picking's 2003 viral Flash animation Badgers and "Flash" by Queen. The song was released on 19 May 2013, in response to proposed badger culling in the United Kingdom. The song features vocals and guitar from Brian May and visuals reminiscent to the 1980 film Flash Gordon, in addition to vocals from Weebl and Brian Blessed. Said May of the song:
The British people are speaking in their many thousands, and yet the Government is refusing to listen. We thank them for buying this track and giving the badgers a voice. Let’s get this to number one so David Cameron cannot avoid it. This cull is unscientific, unethical and won’t work. The government is set to murder 5,000 badgers and yet all the peer-reviewed scientific evidence shows that the answer to the problem of bovine TB in cattle does not lie in this slaughter and that this action will be ineffective and potentially damaging to the welfare of both farm animals and wildlife. It is shocking that the NFU and the government have been allowed to continue with a politically led policy with no basis in science against the will of the people. Badgers rock!
Care for the Wild International (CWI) was a British animal welfare organisation that campaigned to protect the welfare of wild animals around the world. Care for the Wild International described its mission as "to stop and prevent the suffering of wild animals of all species" and to "promote investigation into the value of each species in the web of life and particularly the effect that mankind's actions have on wildlife". The CWI was dissolved in 2015 with its funds transferred to the Born Free Foundation.
Humane Society International Australia (HSIA) is the Australian branch of Humane Society International (HSI), an offshoot of the international animal protection organisation, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).
Animal welfare in the United Kingdom relates to the treatment of animals in fields such as agriculture, hunting, medical testing and the domestic ownership of animals. It is distinct from animal conservation.
