Recently animal welfare campaigner Dominic Dyer has been very vociferous on many media platforms urging the government to help Pen Farthing get himself, his staff and his animals out of Afghanistan and opposing the killing of Geronimo the alpaca. Of course neither of these topics involve UK wild mammals but Dominic has also been very vociferous for many years about the badger cull in England which certainly does involve UK wild mammals; thousands of them.

We are aware that many in government, especially in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) would like Dom Dyer to ‘shut up’. Well we have a suggestion for them.

We suggest that DEFRA arrange some INDEPENDENT post mortem examinations starting with Geronimo and moving on to a substantial sample of the badgers killed during the current culling session. The costs will be minimal compared with those of policing the cull. Faced with statistics showing that Geronimo was suffering from BovineTb and that a considerable percentage of the badgers culled were also terribly ill with this dreadful disease Mr Dyer, Chris Packham et al won’t have a leg to stand on and will have to retreat shamefaced and acknowledge that DEFRA were right to organise the badger cull.

The only possible problem with this plan is of course if the government know, or strongly suspect, that INDEPENDENT post mortems might show that Geronimo and the vast majority of the badgers killed did not have Bovine Tb.

Come on DEFRA. You want to shut Dominic Dyer up so now’s your chance. Let’s see some INDEPENDENT post mortems. Let’s see some science.