To think the BBC are being deliberately provocative and should not be screening The Burrowers now

[TheKingAndI]

The desperately long awaited badger cull pilot is due to take place this summer/autumn, which will be a huge relief to many farmers who are suffering the scourge of bovine tb. I just don't think we need the BBC to be so provocative by showing this program at the current time, with its "cute" badgers being fawned over and fondled by Chris Packham.

[Viviennemary]

Badgers have as much right to be on this earth as any other creature. I think those culls are horrific.

[AnneUulmelmahay]

Edam there ain't enough s in the world to express how my face is wrt OP

[edam]

bella, it's a programme about burrowing animals. Trailers are being broadcast now. The OP has a vested interest and wants the BBC to spread her propaganda. She somehow imagines the BBC have rushed this wildlife programme out in a couple of weeks in answer to the government's proposed badger cull.

The OP clearly didn't stop to find out about how programmes are commissioned or made, she just jumped in assuming the Beeb were out to get her personally. But never mind, apparently she has 'friends' who have worked for the Beeb who have told her it's all a plot...

[RubyrooUK]

YABU. And I also have a vested interest as someone who has worked with the BBC and knows how long it takes to commission, film and schedule a series.

Oh and anyway, this programme wasn't even made by the BBC. It is made by a production company called Dragonfly and apparently took them a year to film.

All of which makes it very unlikely that the BBC are deliberately running this series to goad pro-cull farmers (which as others say, is in fact not all farmers anyway).

[bellablot]

I'm lost altogether...is this a programme on badgers in general or badger culling?

It seems like two threads in one.

[edam]

this has been around for years but no doubt TheKingandI believes it was dreamed up yesterday to wind her up, and the creator should be drummed off the net...

[edam]

So, OP, you admit you have vested interests but somehow think the Beeb should be a propaganda tool for your side?

And you imagine a major factual wildlife series, that has taken years to make, has been dreamed up in two months just to piss you off?

'Some of my friends work for the BBC' - is that your version of 'some of my best friends are black'? You clearly didn't ask them how long it takes to make a series...

[Fishandjam]

YABU, for all the reasons already stated.

And bella, Chris P is emphatically not a creep. He's one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable presenters we have on TV. If anyone will ensure that the programme does not involve cute anthropomorphism, it's him. (And he looks bloody amazing for his age, not that that's relevant.)

[quoteunquote]

what do you think of the badger friendly milk situation

I think killing a native species because it is in the way, is undoubtedly stupid.

The Australians have learnt by their mistakes, one of their quite recent relatively was the reason the rainforest were not regenerating, was because they had persecuted the cassowary, as the rainforest had evolved with the cassowary and it's predecessors, a lot of the key plants and trees had developed so their seeds nuts only germinated if they had passed through the gut of a Cassowary,

Cassowary are very territorial and attack anything that comes into their quite large space, with their lethal spurs, they can decapitate a human with one kick, a bit of a surprise for the first Europeans,

so they have a very delicate balance to maintain, it took a long time to identify why the rain forests were not regenerating, no one realised what purpose the Cassowary were performing.

Badgers have been living in harmony on this land for longer than the humans have, there really were here first.

We don't know what the price we will pay when we eradicate them, it would be foolish to deliberately wipe them out, without knowing the full consequences.

there are two things that target and eat clegs/horseflies, an insect that causes a lot of damage to livestock, (and humans) wasps and dragonflies, we filled in all the ponds so the dragonfly's numbers have bottomed out, and we wipe out wasps nests where ever we can,

www.pondconservation.org.uk/millionponds

our toad and frog numbers are critical and they have a virus,

The majority of farmers and councils cut the hedges far too early, and take the berries off, so the birds are not here anymore to deal with pests.

We are all going to pay for this deliberate ignorance.

I come from farmers, I live with farmers, I live in the middle of the countryside,

This is yet another massive mistake, it is not even a solution, so there for pointless.

[FreckledLeopard]

Well, anything that adds additional strength to those that oppose the cull is wonderful. Perhaps the misguided science behind the proposed cull might finally be recognised and the needless destruction of wildlife shelved.

[FrigginRexManningDay]

And FYI its the foxes behind the badger propaganda, didn't any of you see The Animals of Farthing Wood?

[FrigginRexManningDay]

There's otters in the stream behind my house.

Δ Pointless point but I do like nature programmes.

[PenelopePipPop]

Erm is the logic of your post seriously that if badgers are to be culled then
communication about badger behaviour should also be suppressed?

To what end? If the arguments for culling are sound it should make no difference. You seem to think everyone who has a different opinion to you holds that different opinion because they think badgers are cute. Could you be any more patronising?

[SoniaGluck]

YABU, OP. There is another side to the argument, as you well know. As has been pointed out not all farmers agree that a cull is the way to go.

God forbid that anyone might have a different way of looking at things, though, eh?

As to looking at all the evidence Happy, why assume that people opposed to the cull haven't already done so?

And, as an aside, I am totally fed up with constant attacks on whatever the BBC does. Quite often the people who lead the attacks have an agenda as edam said.

We will be very much the poorer if ever those who don't like the BBC manage to abolish it.

[Pachacuti]

The Robin Page piece about badgers being edited out of the Countryfile hedgehog piece was interesting (although he rather detracted from his main point by spending the first half of the article complaining that they hadn't asked him to be on a programme that he doesn't like and doesn't watch; under normal circumstances I might well have skipped over the rest of the article at that point).

[inde]

God has it really come to this. The BEEB can't even put on a programme about our national wildlife without it being considered provocative to farmers. Do you really expect them to put out a memo to the makers of autumn watch saying no badgers please it might make farmers and their wives feel guilty.
Not a dig at all farmers by the way. Many of them respect and encourage local wildlife.

[Meglet]

Yabu. Huge over thinking IMO.

Did anyone see the baby rabbits, they only need one short bf a day then the mum flounces off out again. No cluster feeding for mummy rabbits .

[Morgause]

Even The farmers Weekly newspaper thinks so.

www.fwi.co.uk/articles/18/02/2013/137698/widespread-badger-cull-will-not-solve-bovine-tb-warns.htm

[HappySeven]

I should have said that Adam didn't say there was a link but merely reported that there was to be a cull. He tried to be balanced and now Countryfile avoids the subject. That's insane and not balanced.

[Morgause]

Badger cull helps solve Bovine TB problems = Bad science.

Educate yourself, OP.

[HappySeven]

I'm guessing the OP knew people wouldn't agree with her but wanted to get people thinking. This is an interesting article showing how country file steers away from such issues which we assume is, at best, not to alienate people but is possibly because of the threats presenters such as Adam have had to their family since they said they believed there was a link here

There needs to be a proper debate and by people who have real data. Perhaps mumsnet isn't the place to do it but it's never wrong to try and get people to see another point of view.

[Moxiegirl]

Badgers are going to be culled?

[feesh]

TheKingAndI you do realise that this programme was probably commissioned at least 3 years ago?! YABU.