Hi Penny & Nic,
I haven’t heard anything back from John but, from your post above Nic, that probably answers the main question I posed that of linking the two campaigns. I felt that if the link to the Petition Parliament could be added to the information on the 38 degree website in some way that might increase the uptake of signatures but it doesn’t sound promising from what you have said.
The 38 degree petition is still going strong and now has over 140,000 signatures which is fantastic as this increases the profile of the campaign against the A24 traps. I can also see why they are doing so well as it is very easy to sign up too their petition by a simple press of a button (the Petition Parliament takes a bit more effort as we know although not that much more) but it doesn’t trigger a debate in Parliament which will have more gravitas.
I saw the hedgehog feature on Countryfile and contacted them to say it was a shame that the A24 trap issue couldn’t have been mentioned/debated as another peril facing our hogs but I have asked them if they would be prepared to put a follow up article on their website to advertise the petition but we will see what occurs. I will also try sending an email to the ‘have your say bbc’ address Penny and see if that gets any mileage as the more of us that contact them on one subject the more they will take notice hopefully.
We must all keep the faith and if we get the message out there via the on line community, wildlife groups, word of mouth, posters etc we can keep getting the numbers up and hit that magic 100,000 figure – I’m sure we can do this all.
