Dear Badgers

If you're a badger living in Dorset, Somerset or Gloucestershire at the moment, you're in trouble. I'm writing to inform you that you're being subject to a cull. You may have noticed some traps near your setts, or perhaps members of your family have gone missing. Well they're probably gone for good.

The British Human Government have decided to remove up to 2,000 of you within the cull zones during a six week period. We are currently in the middle of that period, and I promise you that there are people out there at night trying to help you guys. People are giving up their sleeping time to trudge the soggy footpaths in the countryside, looking for traps, hoping to prevent you from getting caught. Please don't blame us all.

I appreciate that you are a Protected Species in the UK, and that if I were to do you harm I could be prosecuted. But there are people out to get you, bearing special licences to shoot you in the night, or more conveniently, trap you in a metal box and leave you there to be shot at dawn. These people probably drive BMWs to feel better about themselves, but that's by the by really.

I know it's not your fault, and that you've become embroiled in a political war against Bovine Tuberculosis. I know that culling you won't solve the problem and that the government have ignored advice from their scientific advisors in favour of placating the NFU. I know that they've gone so far down this ridiculous road that they can't find space to turn around, despite the fact that they are lost. But there's nothing I can do about it. That's what's so frustrating, that you are being slaughtered out there tonight, for no real reason.

Culling badgers has not reduced Bovine Tb in the last pilot cull areas.

Scientists appointed by the government have assessed the cull as ineffective, and inhumane, and have called for an end to it.

It's costing us humans with jobs £6,000 to kill each one of you.

There are animals being shot in the night, and it's not achieving a thing.

I'm sorry for the state of our country Badgers, and for the way we're treating one of our most iconic mammal species. I'll be out on the footpaths tomorrow night. We'll do what we can Badgers. The best thing you can do right now is stay at home and avoid metal boxes and people with guns.

Good luck...