It's a bad time to be a badger

Animal-rights activists are going crazy at the thought of the badger cull that has been announced by environment secretary Caroline Spelman in response to years of lobbying from farmers who insist on believing that it will limit the spread of tuberculosis in cattle. Some experts argue that there is plenty of evidence that culls simply don't have an impact on bovine health. I must confess that I don't know who is right and who is wrong. But I do know one thing. There are already a lot more dead badgers about than there used to be. It is not uncommon now to see badger corpses at the side of the road, killed by traffic. One farmer I know – not a dairy farmer – says that the badger population has become so large on his land that they are breaking their nocturnal habit, because night-time foraging is no longer enough to sustain the population. Whatever way you want to call it, now is not an auspicious point to be a badger.