Thursday 6th October marks National Badger Day in the UK. Ahead of the national day, TV naturalist and campaigner Bill Oddie spent a night in the Dorset cull zone as part of a Wounded Badger Patrol.

The badger patrols operate in all six cull zones, and involve local residents critical of the cull walking public footpaths and rights of way in cull zones by night, when badgers are most active.

Oddie is highly critical of the highly controversial badger cull which the government rolled out to new areas in August. The policy has been hugely unpopular with the public and former supporters of the cull have begun to defect. last year, The British Veterinary Association, which in principle supports the idea of a badger cull as part of a national bovine TB eradication strategy, announced that it could no longer support the government’s cull because of the continued use of free-shooting to kill badgers.

On Wednesday, TV naturalist Oddie accused the government of acting like a school bully in ignoring expert opinions that its culling strategy is inhumane and isn’t supported by the findings of the very studies on which its design is based. He and Claire Bass, director of the Humane Society International spent a night in the Dorset cull zone earlier this week, where he said, “[The government are] taking no notice of all the scientific evidence which says this doesn’t work. And it’s a cruel process there’s no two ways about it.

“It’s almost like ‘We are the government, you are the NGOs, you do not tell [us] what to do, we’re in charge’, and it reminds me of some bloody-minded teacher or 6th form bully or something, who says we’ve decided what we’re gonna do and we’re going to do it. And there’s no other reason than that.”

Defending the decision to expand culling operations during a debate in Parliament last month, farming minister George Eustice said, “The science is clear and the veterinary advice is clear. I would not sanction a cull of badgers unless it were necessary. Apart from anything else it’s very expensive. I’m not the sort of person who wants to kill wildlife for fun.”  

However, the faming minister was criticised by opposition MPs for relying on evidence that was several decades old or has been gathered from elsewhere in the world to support his position.