"If I were a farmer I would be very upset about having to kill my animals prematurely because of a disease that is out of control, but it's not the badgers fault," says Brian May, the former Queen guitarist and a well-known campaigner against the culling of badgers.
The Queen guitarist has been an ardent supporter of the badger
Speaking to the Huffington Post UK at the launch of The Cosmic Tourist by Patrick Moore, May, himself an amateur astronomer, called the cull “a terrible mistake,” adding: “it’s a tragedy that the anger of farmers is directed towards this innocent animal which has been infected by the same virus as the cows have. We should be curing badgers and cows, the farmers anger should be directed at people such as DEFRA and what needs to happen is we need to vaccinate our cows not just the badgers."
Supporters of the cull believe that bovine tuberculosis in cattle is spread by Badgers, however opponents dispute this.
The guitarist, who said he became involved in the campaign because he had a passion to save the badgers, now believes the vaccination of cows is not years away as DEFRA has suggested and could be only months away.
“If we were at war and we needed to vaccinate our cows to defeat the enemy it would happen tomorrow. We don't need a pilot cull we need a pilot vaccination trial," he said.
“A lot of people who I have spoken to from scientific papers have never read the RBCT report they have a rough idea of what's in it, and you have people like David Cameron and Owen Paterson coming out with statements like culling would be good for badgers.
“If you read the RBCT report it clearly says every time you do a cull of badgers the percentage of infected creatures rises. It's a no-brainer really, can you imaging culling people randomly, it's beggars belief that people in these responsible positions would be coming out with statements like these."