Queen Guitarist Brian May Could Buy $11 Million Estate to Save Badgers!

Brian May, former guitarist for the rock band Queen, is currently looking to buy a 665-acre estate in West Somerset, England in order to halt plans for another controversial badger cull in the area.

Chargot Estate, in Exmoor National Park, has been described as the “jewel in the crown” of Somerset’s shooting estates. The land is estimated to be worth £7 million (the equivalent of over $11 million in U.S. currency) and includes several deep-sided valleys, two cottages, a farmhouse and three keepers’ flats. The area has traditionally been used for cruel hunting and blood sports.

Campaigners and local residents, including Brian May, have reacted with fury to a series of recent badger culls on the estate, which went ahead in spite of a damning scientific report which showed that they were cruel and ineffective. May has advocated vaccinating wild badgers at a cost of just £120 per animal, in comparison to the ridiculous £4,200 cost per head that was spent on the previous badger culls.

May said, “It’s almost impossible to conceive how a government can put an ‘Independent Expert Panel’ in place, and tell the public that their next decision will be based on its report, and then, receiving the panel’s decision that the cull is both inhumane and ineffective, still carry on the killing.”

He also stated that he was “disgusted” by the killings.

In her condemnation of the culls, shadow environment secretary Maria Eagle told the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson the following: “There is no strategy here, this is an unscientific fudge for you to try and save face. How can you possibly justify continuing a method of killing – free shooting – which has been found to be inhumane by the independent scientific advisors? You ignore scientific evidence, make a decision based on your own prejudice and then offer retrospectively to tell me and others what the policy is and expect us to agree with you. These culls should be ended not extended, they have not worked.”

And now May, through his wildlife charity Save Me, is looking to purchase the Chargot estate and convert the land into a nature reserve – which would halt plans by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to continue their catastrophic badger culls.

Anne Drummer, chief executive of Save Me, said the organization “will be looking at everything about the estate and whether we can make it a long-term ongoing Conservation project.”

Once a report has been compiled on the area’s suitability as a long-term nature reserve, May will decide whether to purchase it or not.

The charity currently manages five estates throughout England, including two separate reserves near Tolpuddle and Bere Regis in Dorset, and another near the city of Manchester.

Let’s hope their most recent purchase is successful, and Somerset’s badgers will be saved from DEFRA’s cruel shooting campaign!

Image source: Ferrebeekeeper/Wordpress