Chris Packham, Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay have faced threats and insults for taking the fight for wildlife to court, but they are not going away
Wild Justice is seen by many as the disruptive new kid on the block. The environmental group has ruffled the feathers of countryside goliaths – the shooting and farming industries – and yet its main ally is the greatest establishment of them all: the law.
“Wild Justice gets called lots of names,” says one of its founders, Dr Mark Avery, who was the RSPB’s conservation director for nearly 13 years. “We’re told we’re extremists, we’re zealots, and we’re activists, but what we’re doing is extremely middle class. We’re just using the law and saying ‘you’re not allowed to do that’.”