Badgered to Death: The People and Politics of the Badger Cull (eBook)

Dominic Dyer is a wildlife protection campaigner, writer and broadcaster. He left school at 16 and joined the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food as a civil servant. Over the next 13 years in Whitehall and Brussels he worked on issues ranging from marine environment protection to organic agriculture. In 2000, he left the public sector for the Food and Drink Federation, where he became an expert on the environment and healthy eating trends. In 2008, he was appointed chief executive of the Crop Protection Association, the trade body for the UK plant science industry. In 2012, he abandoned his career as an industry lobbyist and became a full-time wildlife protection campaigner with Care for the Wild.  Today, he is policy advisor for the Born Free Foundation and chief executive of the Badger Trust. Chris Packham is an English naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author. He is best known for his television work including the CBBC children's nature series, the Really Wild Show from 1986 to 1995. He has presented the BBC nature series Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch since 2009. He is vice-president of the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Brent Lodge Bird & Wildlife Trust. He has been a consistent opponent of the badger cull in England, describing it as "sickening, expensive, cruel and divisive." A dead badger was hung on the front gate of his home in the New Forest because of his views on the cull.

INTRODUCTION. Wildlife campaigner and Springwatch BBC presenter Chris Packham says that 'the reputation of this essential member of the UK's ecology [the badger] has been targeted by a smear campaign which has been swallowed by the gullible and fuelled by those with vested interests.'


'It is very clear to me that the government's policy does not make sense.' Lord Robert May, President of the Royal Society and Chief Scientific Advisor, UK Government (1995-2005), speaking in 2012

1. A BLACK AND WHITE NIGHT. Campaigners in 2015 protest at the re-election of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in Witney, Oxfordshire, because of his party's policy of culling European badger (Meles meles), ostensibly to reduce Bovine TB in cattle

2. WOVEN INTO THE LANDSCAPE. Most people have never seen a live badger; the closest we tend to come is as we speed past a corpse on the side of the road. However, these large mammals often live in close proximity to us and there are more than 100 manifestations of the Anglo-Saxon 'broc' in place names

3. A DISEASE OF CATTLE. During an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis (TB for short) in cattle at a farm in the Cotswolds Hills scientists found Mycobacterium bovis (bovine TB) in a dead badger. The Government started and then halted gassing badgers. A study showed badgers rarely carried Bovine TB

4. NEW LABOUR. The Labour Party did not support culling. When Tony Blair's New Labour came to power in May 1997 the Ministry of Agriculture introduced a moratorium on new badger culls. The Krebs report recommended that MAFF set up an experiment to quantify the impact on Bovine TB of culling badgers

5. GORDON BROWN VETOES A CULL. In 2001, Tony Blair created the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which inherited higher bovine TB cases. A review by Professor Bourne of the Krebs randomised trials found only 1.65% of badgers could spread TB to cattle

6. CAMERON'S CULL. In the run up to the 2010 general election, when every rural vote would count, and with commitments already made to the NFU and Countryside Alliance to deliver a badger cull, David Cameron and his farming spokesman Jim Paice hailed a report by Chief Scientific Advisor Sir David King

7. WILDLIFE OVER BUSINESS. A chance encounter on a suburban street in Kingston upon Thames made up the author's mind to ditch corporate lobbying and campaign full-time, already being chairman of Care for the Wild, a wildlife protection charity. He first saw badgers on the Isle of Wight

8. AWKWARD FACTS. New DEFRA Secretary of State Owen Paterson Paterson made it very clear that he would not be pushed off course by growing public, political and scientific opposition to the badger cull. Bovine TB had led to the slaughter of 26,000 cattle the previous year, he told MPs

9. THE BADGER ARMY. Protests were organised nationwide. The informal "Badger Army" had become the largest wildlife protection campaign in Britain and elicited political interest as well as media headlines. After each march photos and videos were shared on Twitter, Facebook and other social media

10. GREEN MOVEMENT FAILS THE BADGER. While ordinary people across the country have protested against the badger cull, there has been a marked lack of action from the major conservation and wildlife protection NGOs. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, World Animal Protection have done almost nothing

11. DEFENDED BY AMATEURS. With the support of other key wildlife protection charities opposing the cull, the Badger Trust challenged the wide-ranging nature of an anti-protect injunction and its impact on the right to peaceful protest at the High Court

12. BBC BIAS. As the badger cull progressed the BBC became heavily criticised by the badger protection movement. In my view, some of this was unfair, particularly as its regional networks had given extensive coverage of the badger protection patrols in the culling zones.