Brian May - Activist

Activist

See also: Badger culling in the United Kingdom

Brian May has formed a group to promote animal welfare. Though a Conservative Party voter most of his life, he has stated that their policies on fox hunting and the culling of badgers meant he did not vote for them at the 2010 General Election. His group, Save Me (named after the May-written Queen song), campaigns for the protection of all animals against unnecessary, cruel and degrading treatment; with a particular emphasis on preventing hunting of foxes and the culling of badgers. The group's primary concern is to ensure that the Hunting Act 2004 and other laws protecting animals are kept in place. In a September 2010 interview with Stephen Sackur for the BBC’s HARDtalk program, May said that he would rather be remembered for his animal rights work than for his music or science.

In March 2012, Brian May contributed the foreword to a target paper published by the think tank the Bow Group, urging the Government to reconsider its plans to cull thousands of badgers to control Bovine TB, stating that the findings of Labour's major badger culling trials, several years earlier, show that culling does not work. The paper was authored by Graham Godwin-Pearson with contributions by leading tuberculosis scientists, including Lord Krebs.

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