Many aspects of rural life are a mystery to those not directly engaged with them. The rhythms of life and death on the farm; the culls and the casualties, the control of vermin and the rearing, for slaughter, of the animals we need for food.
All these things are happening, day in and day out, for the most part perfectly properly, safely and humanely. The majority agree they are vital for the management of the countryside and the production of our food. But many people prefer not to engage directly with them. They see no more than a benign and often beautiful countryside and the produce it gives us, laid out in the butchers' shops or packaged up in the supermarket. They don't have to worry about the details.
It is possible to imagine, if things were different, the badger cull getting under way, without fuss or intervention, just as fox control, deer culling, rabbiting and other rural management tasks do, week in and week out, in the countryside. But the high profile campaign against the badger cull and the efforts of those most vehemently opposed, to try to disrupt it, mean that there is a nervousness in the cull zones about what might happen when June 1 – the likely start date – dawns.
The arguments put out for broad public consumption by the anti-cull campaigners have, in the main, been emotional rather than scientific. Dr Brian May, formerly a guitarist with the rock band Queen but probably better known to a new generation as a pro-badger campaigner, may know his stuff. But he and others in the anti-cull lobby have concentrated on the widespread appeal of the badger as a fascinating, often beautiful and rather 'magical' creature, to drive home their advantage. It is hardly surprising that a majority of the public is opposed to a cull. If asked "Do you want to see Mr Badger of Wind in the Willows fame shot?' Who – apart, perhaps, from a farmer who has just seen his herd go down with TB – is going to say 'yes' to that?
Beyond those who feel uncomfortable with the cull but won't do much about it and the legitimate and well-motivated opponents who believe the pro-cull science is flawed, are the out-and-out fanatics. They are not above using threats of violence to try to dissuade farmers from allowing it to go-ahead on their land. Those tactics, added to the more subtle pressure from some major players in the food and farming field – including the RSPCA, which is removing Freedom Food status from farmers in the cull zones – have made many landowners nervous of speaking up.
The teams who will carry out the actual shooting are keeping an even lower profile. They are almost certainly recruited from the fox control experts, deer stalkers and other pest controllers who carry out safe and humane work across the countryside. None of them, however, is likely to stand up and say: "I'm a badger culler". In some circles, right now, that could be akin to saying: "I eat babies". Yet the work they will do, once the cull starts will be among the most closely controlled operation of its kind to have been carried out in the countryside.
Natural England, the Government quango that looks after the countryside, issues the licences to cull badgers, which are a protected species. They, and their Government masters at Defra, have laid down strict criteria about how the cull should proceed, under the control of the farmers and land-owners.
Those doing the shooting will already be licensed to own and use firearms or shotguns. Many will already be familiar with the terrain over which they will be carrying out the cull. Each of them has undergone a compulsory and exhaustive training course covering the ecology of the badger, the safe handling of weapons and the right way to deal with the badger carcass once shot.
Those who complete the course must sit a written examination of 40 questions and then undertake a practical shooting test, placing three rifle rounds in a 7.5cm circle from 70 metres away. The test is carried out at night, with a lamp and telescopic sights, to replicate precisely the circumstances in which badgers will be culled. As one expert explained: "All of those taking the test are already experienced at shooting. They would routinely be shooting foxes at even greater ranges than this in perfect safety."
The regulations, laid down in a Defra document, specify the calibre of the rifle that must be used – at least a .22 centre fire – and the ammunition, which must be of 50 grain weight. Similar weapons and ammunition are used to control foxes. The maximum range at which a badger can be shot with a rifle is 70 metres. If a shotgun is used it must be a 12-bore with tightly choked barrels to concentrate the shot pattern and only AAA cartridges, the largest size, can be used. The maximum range for shooting a badger with a shotgun is 10 metres. Badgers will be attracted to areas where they can be safely shot with the use of bait. Peanuts mixed with treacle are recommended.
These details, including regulations on ensuring there is always a backstop behind the shot – essential to avoid bullets going astray – are laid out in the 17-page guidance issued by Defra. It also includes pictures of badgers to show the point of aim, to ensure a fatal shot to the heart and lungs. And once the culling starts all those taking part will be independently monitored and postmortems carried out on every carcass to ensure the badgers have been humanely killed.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, no one on the cull teams is talking publicly, about this or any other aspect of the cull. As one individual with a close interest said: "When you are in a field with a bull, you don't get your red rag out and start waving it around." So while the protesters organise a 'flash mob' in London singing a Brian May-penned song inspired by the Queen hit "Flash" – and attract national media attention – the cull teams will be quietly preparing for action. Just because they are not defending every attack from the anti-cull protesters doesn't mean Defra, who authorised the cull, the NFU, whose members are largely underwriting it, or the individual farmers on whose land it will take place, are necessarily having doubts. They are, however, concerned about the public impact, particularly given the fact that farmers have to be aware of how their customers – that's all of us who buy food – will view them.
They hope that their policy, based on evidence from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, demonstrates that killing a large proportion of badgers – at least 70% – over a sufficiently wide area will bring down the incidence of TB by an average of 16%. That may not sound like a lot, given the effort involved. But with TB raging across the country and more than 38,000 cattle culled across Britain in 2012, plus the soaring cost – to the taxpayer and the farming community – they would say that anything that starts to turn the tide is worth trying. Those opposed to the cull, of course, say that quite apart from the emotional and animal welfare arguments the cull won't work and is likely to make things worse. They want to see vaccination of infected badgers. The last time we got this close to the pilot cull – which had been due to start last autumn – the level of opposition increased up as the start date drew closer. But the National Farmers' Union called for a postponement last October when surveys showed that badger numbers in the cull areas were far higher than expected and the exceptionally wet summer had delayed preparations. Defra said at the time: "The exceptionally bad weather this summer has put a number of pressures on our farmers and caused significant problems. Protracted legal proceedings and the request of the police to delay the start until after the Olympics and Paralympics, have also meant that we have moved beyond the optimal time for delivering an effective cull. We should have begun in the summer.
"In addition to these problems, the most recent fieldwork, has revealed that badger numbers in the two areas are significantly higher than previously thought. This only highlights the scale of the problem we are dealing with."
The issues that delayed the cull have been overcome but the principle problem – bovine TB in our cattle and our countryside – has not. What happens next will determine the future of one of the most damaging diseases to have affected the countryside in decades. Whether it will settle the biggest rural argument since the Hunting Act is another matter.