S Poddar
Brian May is synonymous with rock royalty, being a guitarist for Queen. However, over the years, he has taken up another mantle: animal activist, specifically concerning the fate of badgers in the United Kingdom. His latest project is a documentary, Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers and Me, which charts his four-year experiment into whether badgers are indeed carriers of bovine tuberculosis (TB) or if the large-scale culling of these animals is an utterly unnecessary tragedy.
It is an issue where May has always doubted that badgers are one of the main vectors for the transmission of bovine TB to cattle, as put forward by the government. This disease, that necessitates the compulsory slaughter of infected cattle—up to 20,000 a year—is devastating for the farmers who lose animals they have tended, often for many years. For the past two decades, badgers have been central to a debate marked by high controversy. Government-approved culling programs costing millions and highly contentious have been in place for the last 20 years. In the past decade, about 200,000 badgers were culled—at an estimated yearly cost to taxpayers of £100 million.
But May doesn’t believe that the badger is behind bovine TB. Teaming up with Anne Brummer, Save Me Trust’s co-founder, his animal welfare charity, and large-animal vet Dave Sibley, May sets out to demolish this long-held belief. Together, they set out to investigate on Robert Reed’s infected farm in Wales, hoping to get to the bottom of things.
Probably the most impressive thing about May’s approach is his gentle, reflective manner. He delivers his breathtaking information so modestly that one hardly notices. He casually mentions that the government-mandated tests for TB are woefully inadequate, spotting only about 50 percent of infected animals. That means a lot of cows that appear perfectly healthy are actually still infective, and have been continuing the circle of infection. More sensitive tests are performed on Reed’s farm, identifying all the infected animals and revealing a grave mistake in the government’s approach.
The inquiry does not end here. May and his colleagues further investigate into the transmission mode and learn that the infected cattle are contagious primarily through their dung. This waste could be put on crops or land grazed by other cows, or even badgers, and thus ingested via the slugs and snails that share the same land. Improved hygiene on Reed’s farm, coupled with the continued use of the more sensitive tests, finally clears the herd of disease.
Yet the documentary fails to answer some crucial questions. Why was this apparently relatively simple, albeit time-consuming, experiment left to a rock star and his team? Elsewhere, too, the film is thin on detail: are the more effective tests available only at a prohibitively high cost? Should basic hygiene practices – keeping cows’ food and water free from slurry, for example – have always been standard?.
Further, when it is explained in the film that it is impossible to vaccinate cows against the pathogen without them reacting as if they have been infected and therefore needing to be slaughtered, one has to wonder: is this a solvable bureaucratic problem or is there a scientific way to determine between immune and infected animals?.
Despite these gaps, May’s documentary succeeds in its primary objective: rather than polemicizing an anti-culling argument, he offers a reasoned and reasonable discussion, encouraging viewers to consider that perhaps there is better. His approach is so measured and considered that in its quiet insistence on exploring alternatives to the status quo, it feels almost revolutionary.
It is not just saving badgers that Brian May fights for in The Badgers, the Farmers and Me, but a long-held perception in an attempt to find the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. He opens a conversation with the potential to save the lives of so many animals and gives hope that perhaps there may be a more compassionate solution to the bovine TB crisis, which has been in crisis control mode for far too long.
This documentary was broadcast on BBC Two and will be on iPlayer for a long time to come, for anyone wanting further enlightenment by this piece of diligent investigative journalism. May’s commitment to the cause, combined with his soft yet firm questioning style, makes for something that is an absolute necessity of watching by all those interested in animal welfare, farming, or simply the pursuit of truth in the face of very established practice.
