I Contributed to Badger Cruelty

04 Dec 2023 | ~2 minute read

I'm ashamed to say that I contributed to badger cruelty, and I feel horrendous because of it.

This post contains details that some people my find upsettings (I know I did).

A few weeks ago I started wet shaving again, and when buying my little shaving kit, I purchased a "badger brush to apply my shaving foam.

Last night I was getting a shave while my wife was in the shower, and I said nonchalantly; "just applying my shaving foam with the badger brush..."

To my wife's astonishment, she replied with something along the lines of "that better fucking not be badger fur!".

"It isn't" I reassured her, "they just use the term 'badger brush' because the bristles look like badger fur."

That's what I assumed at least...surely a mainstream shop, like Amazon, won't sell real animal fur? Right? RIGHT??

This prompted me to do some research into it, and to my surprise, I was wrong. It is real fucking badger fur! Not only that, but the poor little things are (unsurprisingly) mistreated and subsequently murdered in horrendous conditions.

I found a video from PETA that shows these poor badgers being kept in little cages. It shows one badger being clubbed around the head with a fucking table leg, then being brutally murdered by having it's throat slit.

You can watch the video here, but be warned, it's horrendous. It made me very distressed and upset.

Needless to say I feel awful. I love animals and really don't want to see them mistreated. I'm disgusted and ashamed that I contributed to animal cruelty in such a direct way.

What I did about it

My immediate thought was to throw the brush away and buy a synthetic brush. But a badger has given its life for that brush, isn't throwing it away making things worse? But I don't want to use the brush, either.

So I've decided to buy a synthetic brush. I will keep the badger brush too, but I wont use it.

I also decided to make a £50 donation to Badgers Trust UK. That measly amount doesn't come close to fixing the problem, but it's something.

I've also setup a Just Giving page for the Badgers Trust, so if you want to donate too, that would be fantastic.

If you're using badger fur brushes at home, which is possible as they're very common, please think about buying synthetic brushes next time. The suffering these poor little guys have to go through is just awful. All for the sake of a brush, for goodness sake. A brush!

Donate to the Badgers Trust

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