At the start of the Boris Johnson premiership Dominic Dyer, animal welfare campaigner and former CEO of the Badger Trust was in regular contact with Downing Street and seemed very hopeful that the pointless badger cull in England was finally drawing to an end.

Dominic was apparently in conversation with Boris Johnson and his then girlfriend Carrie Symonds (now Johnson) and seemed very hopeful. What was the result? A continuation of badger culls in existing areas and an extension to some new ones.

More recently Dominic Dyer appealed to Boris Johnson to review the discredited Bovine Tb tests used on Geronimo the alpaca and save the animal from a miserable death. What was the result? Geronimo was dragged off by staff from the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and killed. We are still waiting to see proof that Geronimo had Bovine Tb.

Once again it seems that the rhetoric and promises were not matched by any action.

Now we have been made aware that an internal review is taking place of the Protection of Badger’s Act 1992 (PoBA). The act was originally introduced to toughen the law on badger baiting. It was drafted so strictly that it created a number of offenses that are not solely associated with baiting. These offenses cause problems to developers wanting to build on badger setts and to farmers and others wishing to kill or remove badgers occupying their land. The suggestion in government is that the Animal Health and Welfare Acts which prohibit animal fights are able to deal with badger baiting more effectively than the PoBA. If the act were to be repealed the current problems of licensing and maintaining areas for the badger cull would be resolved at the stroke of a pen. It would also save developers from the time and expense of organising surveys for badgers and arranging suitable mitigation when they are found.

Badgers are not an endangered species in terms of numbers and the law that exists was passed solely to protect them from persecution by baiting. Repealing the PoBA would win the government many friends in the farming and business community and save Natural England considerable administration costs. It would also make it much more difficult for protesters to organise against a piecemeal cull that could be happening anywhere at any time.

This news suggests that one of our most iconic species is seriously at risk.