FARMERS and naturalists have joined forces in a campaign to crack down on the activities of badger baiters in the countryside.

The agreement comes after two attacks on setts in the Bishop Auckland area earlier this year, which prompted Darlington Rural Watch (DRW) to contact Durham County Badger Group to see what could be done to protect the animals further south.

The watch group, which includes farmers and other people living in the rural area around Darlington, gathers intelligence on trespassers, poachers, thieves and drug-users on farmland and works closely with police, including mounting joint patrols.

Its members have given three badger group members permission to check setts on farmland around Darlington, backed up with DRW identity cards in case they are challenged by farmers.

Brian Pavey, the Darlington-based chairman of DRW and a local gamekeeper, contacted the badger group after reading about the Bishop Auckland incidents in The Northern Echo.

Mr Pavey said: "We do get situations when poachers come on to the land and go near setts. I think they are either giving, or more likely, selling information on setts to badger baiters.

"I was concerned that setts in the Darlington area were not being visited regularly enough by experts to check they were unharmed, and I am delighted that the badger group has agreed to work with us."

A spokesman for the badger group said: "We have joined forces with Darlington Rural Watch in an effort to more closely monitor setts around the borough. We feel that this can only be beneficial to the efforts to protect badgers in the area.

"Hopefully, intelligence will be shared between the two groups and enforcement agencies such as the police and the RSPCA, in a bid to counter badger digging and baiting."

It is also planned that members of the badger group will attend a meeting of DRW next month to pass on information to farmers interested in badger conservation.

Badger group members fear that the animals are being dug out of setts in County Durham to take part in illegal badger baiting, in which the creatures are pitted against dogs, and spectators lay bets on the outcome