Badgers Take Blame For Not Enough Dead Badgers In Cull

[ChillDoubt]

Those little fiends 'moved the goalposts'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-24459424

What did they do? Learn to zig-zag and 'hard-target'?
Buy bullet proof vests? Master the art of cover from fire and cover from view?

[Old_Geezer]

Damned unsporting of them.

[viv38]

Whatever it was, good for them .....

[emmie]

how absurd, the man is a fool

[LazyGun]

Sneaky little beggars... ;)

Someone is definitely moving the goalposts though, in terms of the duration of the trial and the numbers of badgers required to be killed. They have killed less than half the numbers they thought they needed to demonstrate the pilot was working, so I cannot see how Mr.Paterson can declare the trial "a success"

[IggyB]

Oh dead do we have to have Brian May back spouting nonsense about something he is clearly not very informed about... Why did an ex pop star become a go to guy for complex animal control business?

[IggyB]

Prob should have said disease control business rather than animal control

[Old_Geezer]

One of the things I have learnt about government trials is that no matter what the outcome one can find something in order to claim it was a success.

[jno]

sounds funny, badgers moving the goalposts, but he was just repeating someone else's phrase, and said they were doing things that weren't predictable, which is not quite the same as blaming them.

[daffy654]

Brian May isn't just an 'ex popstar', he has a degree in Astrophysics and is a very intelligent man.

[viv38]

And if he wants to stick up for the badgers, good for him.

[vulcan42]

They're preparing to fight back
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/images/666.jpg

[ChillDoubt]

jno,
That's pathetically pedantic even for you.

The thread is a little tongue in cheek, I'll not be berating the badgers for saving themselves and outwitting the marksmen.

[jno]

well, like I say, the phrase about moving the goalposts got the story into the headlines, but otherwise is there actually a story? It would normally just be "Badger cull extended" and who would notice?

[ChillDoubt]

Brian May at work......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EllYgcWmcAY

[Arksided]

Go badgers. Surely if the badgers have scattered and moving further a field isn't that increasing the risk of spreading TB, if they are the cause.

What a bunch of twonks.

[Prudie]

The whole thing makes my blood boil. Yet more evidence that this is planned around seriously flawed and unproved scientific conjecture. They have no idea if they've killed, 20, 50, 90% of the badger population because they don't actually know what they started with. The whole cull stinks.

[andy-hughes]

Only politicians use silly soundbite phrases like 'moving goalposts', and only a politician would be stupid enough to refer to wild animals doing so.

"We're dealing with a wild animal, subject to the vagaries of the weather and disease and breeding patterns,"

Wow - figured that out have you? As the Environment Minister (the clue is in your job description) maybe the idea that badgers don't usually conform to targets and kill ratios should not be all that much of a shock.

There is little tangible evidence that this cull will serve its purpose - so what do we try next?

Over to you minister - watch those goalposts!!!

Idiot!

[boxtops]

I'd bloody move if people were coming after me with shotguns. Good on yer, badgers.

[craft1948]

I'd rather cull Brian May...........

[gness]

Like Prudie, I'm still unsure how they are going to kill 70% or even 60% of an unknown number. Surely if they overestimate the number of badgers in a given area they could kill them all.....and they don't want to accidentally do that.....do they?
As for Brian May...thank god we have people like him to fight a corner.