Jeremy Clarkson says badgers are his 'new nemesis' on Oxfordshire farm

In an interview with The Guardian, the ex-Top Gear host turned farmer talked about how his farm had been plagued with badgers - who constantly urinate on his grass. 

The interview starts: "Over early morning coffee at his Oxfordshire farmhouse, Jeremy Clarkson is talking about his new nemesis, badgers, and the fact that they constantly urinate, usually on his grass."

READ ALSO: Badger culling extended to seven new areas including Oxfordshire

Jeremy says: “If they’ve got TB and a cow eats that bit of grass, then you, the taxpayer, pay for that cow to be killed. A quarter of the world’s badgers live in the UK, causing chaos. But if you say, ‘I’m going to shoot a badger’, you can expect to find your house on fire within 10 minutes. Carrie Johnson is a badger enthusiast, so the Government aren’t likely to do anything while she’s running around.”

Badger Trust’s Acting Executive Director Dawn Varley said many of their supporters had alerted them "to this offensive diatribe".

She said: "To find amusement in the ongoing senseless slaughter of badgers is a new low.

"Grow up Jeremy – educate yourself and try to coexist with nature whilst we still have it."

In an open letter, Ms Varley takes him to task over his statements.

She writes: “You state that ‘badgers constantly urinate’ (they don’t), that a quarter of the world’s badgers live in the UK (there are several different types of ‘world’ badgers, ours is the European badger, meles meles, with around half in the UK, but nobody is really sure on the numbers, so no, that’s not right), and that they ‘cause chaos’ (when was the last time you saw a badger ‘causing chaos’? Or just saw a live badger, for that matter?). 

"You blame badgers for the spread of ‘TB’ (it’s bTB – bovine tuberculosis, a respiratory disease mainly affecting cattle) and state confidently that the ‘Government aren’t likely to do anything’ about this whilst Carrie Johnson, a ‘badger enthusiast’, is around."

The charity tells Jeremy that the Government, "which has been culling badgers since 2013, and with plans to continue mass culling until 2025, are certainly doing something".

"They say, forget about a badger urinating in a field, what about a herd of cows doing that and more, consistently. And when that herd has to be culled due to an outbreak the new herd are (wait for it) – put back into the same field, complete with bTB loaded ground. 

READ ALSO: Oxfordshire MPs react to licences for badger cull

"Disease controls focused on cattle, and improved farm bio-security would go a lot further than continuing to kill badgers for a problem they are not responsible for. Your understanding and reasoning are, pardon the pun, ‘p** poor’ we think here."

Ms Varley continues: “We would be happy to meet with you to educate you on badger ecology, on the role badgers play (it’s a very small part) in the bTB disease transmission equation, and on how we believe farmers can and should do much more to tackle the problem themselves. 

"If the Government put the taxpayers' pounds into cattle measures versus the badger cull to address bTB then the fate of farmers who have to deal with this devastating disease would be on a much better trajectory than at present. As a farmer, surely you’d want that?"

Jeremy Clarkson was contacted for a comment. 

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