In April 1997 after only a few months of being involved in hunt sabotage and environmental activism Jay Tiernan became well known in the U.K. animal rights scene when at a demonstration against a breeder for beagle dogs for vivisection he climbed onto the roof of a building with one of those dogs (something he later went to prison for). A riot ensued and after another very violent demonstration a month later "Consort Beagle Kennels" closed down, he became heavily involved in a variety of animal liberation campaigns until summer 2000 when a fellow activist was nearly killed during a publicity stunt he’d helped organise. At that point he retired from activism, returning in the summer of 2012 to set up the campaign against the then-planned badger culls. As a spokesperson for the campaign, the bulk of his energy goes into using social media and working out creative ways to get into the mainstream media. The badger cull campaign has gone from a handful of people four years ago to now well over a hundred active people on any single night during the six week annual badger culls.