BARRY the badger, who met his tragic end in Accrington, has been brought back to life in a Walt Disney film.
The adult male badger, who was run over and killed on the A56 four years ago, has been preserved using the latest taxidermy techniques.
And he will soon be seen on the big screen in the latest Chronicles of Narnia film, Prince Caspina.
London company Framestore CFC, which has worked on the Harry Potter films and the latest Bond movie, needed a real badger to help it create a character called Trufflehunter for the film.
The company, which specialises in making computer- generated images for TV and film, approched the Lancashire Badger Group which came up with Barry. The voice-over will be performed by actor Ken Stott.
The film is produced by Walt Disney and is due for release in the UK on 24 June.
Badger group chairman Paul Shoreman, of Cattle Street, Great Harwood, pictured, said: "Barry was picked up by a special car sent from London and after four months of movie work was returned by train.
"We had kept him for showing purposes, to allow the public to view a nocturnal creature up close.
"We hope that Barry’s film star role will help raise awareness of the group’s work and help us in the fight to prevent the persecution of this wonderful animal in the wild."
BADGER FACTFILE
- There are three families of badgers – Melinae, the badgers of Europe and Asia which are found in Great Britain, Mellivorinae, the Ratel or honey badger, and Taxideinae, the American badger.
- A male badger is a boar, a female a sow and a young badger a cub.
-- A badger’s home is called a sett and it is passed down from generation to generation.
- In the UK badgers are protected under law. Badgers may not be deliberately killed, persecuted or trapped except under licence.
- Wisconsin, USA, is known as the Badger State due to its large population of American badgers.
