Legendary Queen guitarist Brian May is set to host a brand new BBC documentary titled Brian May: The Badgers, The Farmers And Me, spotlighting his crusade to save the U.K. badger population from being culled in order to stop the spread of a devastating cattle disease.
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" I came in to save the badgers. I now realize that to save the badgers, you have to save everybody, because it's a mess. It's a tragic human drama where people's hearts are broken," May, who has spent years campaigning against the policy, explains about the new hour-long documentary.
For over a decade, the Queen guitar legend and his team have been organizing marches, protests, and sharing stories about the controversial policy of culling badgers and other wildlife in the U.K., which began in 2013 to help stop the spread of Bovine Tuberculosis causing a great strain in the nation’s farming community.
“I don't blame people for being suspicious of me in the beginning,” he acknowledges, “because, you know, I'm a guitarist. You know I'm a rock star. What am I doing? Why would I have some contribution to make?”
That contribution, he believes, along with the help of veterinarian Dick Sibley and farmer Robert Reed, is to show that they have found “the real source” of the disease’s spread, and how a policy change is beyond necessary.
May tells the Radio Times the story, “will outrage viewers” seeing the “monumental failure of British authorities to deal with the terrible problem of bovine TB, and the tragically wasteful slaughter of cows and badgers. Our findings, tracking years of research, are revolutionary and shocking – some will say heretical. I believe they’ll eventually turn farming practices upside down.”
“In the last 12 years,” he continues, “a quarter of a million badgers have been slaughtered, based on the belief that they spread TB among cattle. The testimony of farmers in my film is that this policy has utterly failed them. Rates of infection and consequent numbers of cows slaughtered are no better and, in some areas, worse than ever.
May adds, “In pursuing the tragic badger cull, which has always been morally indefensible, we believe that science has made one of the biggest and most costly mistakes in history – hanging on to a policy that, in time, will be seen as no more effective than burning those unfortunate witches.”
Brian May: The Badgers, The Farmers And Me will air at 9PM Friday, August 23 on BBC Two, BBC Two Wales and BBC iPlayer.