Badger killing and British Prince Charles

This is called Video of Badgers, UK wild badgers at the sett (Meles meles).

Prince Charles versus Badgers

15 May 2015

After years of legal battles, the contents of Prince Charles’ letter to various UK government ministers have now finally seen the light of day.

Not very exciting to say the least. So why the years of legal battles? That could be another issue.

But meanwhile, was Prince Charles just an “opinionated meddler or an informed spokesman” as the press has called him? There is certainly no doubt that Prince Charles has immediate access to the highest levels of government denied the average person. The media was certainly exercised by this level of preferred treatment.

One of his letters dealt with the issue of badgers and their role in bovine tuberculosis in UK cattle. He said badgers should be culled. The Labour government at the time took no action, but the current Conservative government enthusiastically embarked on what Prince Charles proposed.

Now here comes the rub. Badgers are a Protected Species in the UK. And Prince Charles is the President of WWF-UK. Conservation of endangered and protected species like badgers in the UK should start with him. Yet here is Prince Charles pushing to cull badgers, whose role in the overall epizootiology of tuberculosis still needs much further investigation, and there is emerging evidence based on advanced techniques that their role might be minimal. In fact, infected cows might be spreading tuberculosis to badgers. Should a retraction now be in order, especially since Prince Charles went so far as to label those pushing for badger conservation as “intellectually dishonest”?

Meanwhile, Prince Charles in another letter expressed concern about the survival of albatrosses due to commercial overfishing of their prey?

Hmmm.