Brian May to front one-off BBC documentary about badger culling

nme.com:

Brian May is hosting a one-off BBC documentary about his work in the field of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) and how to prevent it without resorting to badger culling.The Queen guitarist has been a long-time opponent of badger culling and the documentary, Brian May: The Badgers, The Farmers And Me, follows him on a four-year project to eradicate the disease – which can devastate cattle populations – without harming the badgers.The documentary will air on August 23 at 9pm on BBC Two.“I don’t blame people for being suspicious of me in the beginning, because, you know, I’m a guitarist,” said May. “You know I’m a rock star.

What am I doing? Why would I have some contribution to make?“I came in to save the badgers. I now realise 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.”The show sees him team up with vet Dick Sibley and farmer Robert Reed – whose farm was chronically infected with bTB – to eliminate the disease without badger culling.

May now hopes to show the wider farming community that he’s found “the real source” of the disease’s spread and they can thus change their policies.Writing in the Radio Times, May said that the story “will outrage viewers more than anything since the Post Office scandal was revealed.“You’ll see the monumental failure of British authorities to deal with the terrible problem of bovine TB, and the tragically wasteful slaughter of cows and badgers.