The band director told me the other day that if I joined the band, they were going to give me the nickname, “badger, badger, badger”.  I didn’t know what that meant, so he told me to go to YouTube and search for videos using the phrase badger, badger, badger.

I did, and I found this really cool video.

I still didn’t know what it was about, so I looked it up on Google. In England, a lot of people like badgers. I do too. And the government and some farmers and some big companies are going to kill thousands of badgers this month because some of them have a disease called tuberculosis.

Cows are getting tuberculosis from the wild badgers. They could trap the badgers, and vaccinate the ones that aren’t sick, and then release them. But instead, they are going to kill them.

A man named Brian May, who used to be a famous guitar player in a band called Queen, is now a college professor in England. In fact, he’s the Sir Isaac Newton Professor of Astrophysics, a real rocket scientist.

Brian May is very rich from being a rock star, so he offered to pay to have the badgers vaccinated. But the government said no.

So now a lot of people are protesting, and making videos, and singing songs about saving the badgers.  I hope they don’t kill all the badgers in England.  You can see more videos about the badger cull and what people are doing to try to save them at the links below.

• Badger Badger Badger (the original)
• Badger Rap
• Live Action Badger Badger Badger
• Heavy Metal Badger Badger Badger Remix
• Brian May Talking about Cruelty to Animals
• Vets Say the Badger Cull is Wrong

Now I don’t mind if they give me the nickname badger, badger, badger!