For those who do not know, Brian May is the lead guitarist of the band Queen. But for those in the animal protection movement he is also an outspoken advocate for animal welfare, most notably fighting for the welfare of badgers. He has recently worked with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) to create a documentary that ended up spanning 4 years, largely due to the pandemic, and focuses on the spread of bovine tuberculosis and badgers. It first aired on the 23 August 2024 and is currently still available to watch on BBC Iplayer.
Whilst I know that Brian May is a musician, I mainly know his name from the animal welfare campaigns he has been a part of. As such, I was expecting this documentary to be far more animal welfare focused than it actually ended up being. I also saw a lot of news articles claiming that the BBC was no longer being ‘impartial’ because it was working with Brian May to make a documentary that was expected to promote badger welfare. I was therefore quite surprised by how scientific the documentary actually ended up being. If anything, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t more of a ‘preach’ for badger protection. But then, from a commercial standpoint, I actually think it makes sense to not be ‘preachy’.
The documentary focuses on the disease bovine tuberculosis (bovine TB), which is a disease that was (and to some degree still is) believed to be spread to farmed cows by badgers. The disease spreads quickly and is a very serious topic within the farming industry. In the UK, it is this belief that allows for a badger cull to be carried out across the country. The documentary does a good job of providing an overview of the political landscape regarding badger culling, including the background as to how the cull came about and the general reception of such a cull. I truly believe that the vast majority of people within the UK do not support a badger cull, however this isn’t the focus of the documentary. Either way, the documentary does provide some useful background on how Brian May got into the situation that the documentary focuses on, which is simply, trying to find a solution to protect cows from being infected and also protect badgers from further culls.
The main issue that the documentary highlights is how inaccurate the current test for bovine TB is. The documentary discussed at length how the test, known as a skin test, was largely inaccurate and only gave a true positive test result a small percentage of the time. But as this is the only official way to test for bovine TB, it is what the industry uses. The documentary focused on how Brian May worked with a family farm and their vet to eradicate bovine TB from their herd of cows without needing to cull any badgers. It was interesting to me that the main action that the farm took to eradicate bovine TB was to simply increase their biosecuirty measures – ensuring the cows couldn’t mess in their water, ensuring pens were properly sanitised before introducing new cows etc – which in turn meant that the chance of spreading boving TB throughout the herd was massively decreased. At the end of the documentary, the end credits showed how the farm had remained bovine TB free using these new measures.
The focus on the science was interesting. I think this is why the documentary has actually come across (to me anyway) as pretty neutral, as it does place a very heavy emphasis on the science of testing and eradicating disease, rather than on the actual animals involved. One criticism I do have of it, though, is that the documentary only seemed to deal with family farmers, most of whom had been farming on the same land for generations. I think this would have been a very different documentary had Brian May tried this approach at a factory farm.
My other criticism – and this is completely personal to me – is that this documentary was a lot more ‘pro-farmer’ than I had been expecting. There were many clips within the documentary of Brian May and his team talking to the family farmers, many of whom were deeply upset and disappointed that their herds of cows had been testing positive for bovine TB. In the UK, once a cow tests positive, the cow is immediately taken for slaughter, and there were clips of this being done on the farm, which again I had not expected. Possibly something to be aware of if you do wish to watch this as there is real footage of animals being killed, both cows and badgers. There were, therefore, also shots of these family farmers looking very sad, most of them even in tears, about having to slaughter one of their cows, who were ‘like family’ to them. Now I get, from a commercial standpoint, why the BBC kept this in. It is clear that these farmers do care about their cows, and they do want to do their best to care for them, and it does add a very real reaction to the situation. At the end of the day, this is a family’s livelihood that is at risk due to bovine TB and helps to highlight just what is at stake for these farmers and why so many in the farming community are in favour of a badger cull. They do not want to have to kill bagders, but if their herd is at risk, then they have no choice. The risk to their livelihood is too great.
But as the cynical vegan that I am, I do question if the farmers are sad about the loss of life, or the loss of profits. As they openly say, farming is their livelihood. It is a trade that has been in their family for generations. So are they sad that a cow has to die, or are they sad that they can no longer make as much profit from her as they would have otherwise? This may just be me being a little bit cynical, but I do believe that a large majority of the vegan moevemnt, as well as those within the animal welfare movement, would have a few issues with how this situation is being portrayed. As I have said, it was far more ‘pro-farmer’ than I had expected. I do not doubt that these farmers care, but again, I think it would be interesting to see if such an approach would have worked at your factory farms or your commercial farms. Call me a cynic again, but I don’t think any of those farms would give this documentary the time of day, let alone listen to their solutions that do aim to improve animal welfare. I think this would have been an interesting approach to take too, as then the documentary could have really highlighted how important a farm’s role is when it comes to disease control, be it bovine TB or anything else. Who knows, maybe next time it will?
But again, I think that was the clever route to take. I think if the documentary had been too welfare focused, it would have been labelled ‘preachy’, and many people would not have paid attention to it. But, having it be focused on the science and the flaws in the testing procedures shifted the blame for the issue from the badgers and onto the actual regulatory framework of the entire industry. I do think it is a well made documentary, and it does show farmers working together with Brian May and his team to work towards a better testing process, as well as advocating for better practices on farms to prevent mass outbreaks of the disease. The documentary shows practical solutions that would be hard for anyone, regardless of where they stood on the topic of badger culling, to argue against what is trying to be achieved. I am therefore a bit confused as to why some reporters claimed that the BBC were not being ‘impartial’, unless they think that the BBC should never highlight any issue with anything that the government does or implements?
Either way, I think this documentary does a good job of starting a conversation about badgers and bovine TB as a whole, and isn’t that what media is meant to do? I think for many people in society, this documentary will be a good introduction to the topic, as it isn’t ‘preachy’ from an animal welfare perspective, but it is also not ‘full of jargon’ from a science perspective. This makes it all a very easy to digest and informative documentary, that will hopefully inspire people to read more about the topic and to take action in whatever way they deem fit, be that in science, campaigns or even politics.
Taylor Talks Vegan 