The spokesman for the anti-badger cull protesters, could not have been clearer. "The moment we know the cull is happening," Jay Tiernan told last week's Farmer's Guardian, "we would expect 200 or 300 people in the cull zone. I expect it to last for a couple of weeks." "It", in this case, will be the shining of flashlights, the playing of vuvuzelas and the broadcasting of loud music, all designed to alert badgers and frighten them away so the riflemen in the cull teams cannot do their work.
But even Mr Tiernan, a veteran of many animal rights protests over the years, cannot say for certain how long a loosely organised group of anti-cull demonstrators will keep up their protests. Nor is it clear if they will be effective or whether the cull teams will be able to give them the slip and carry out the work that the Government has officially sanctioned.
Listen to the vehemence in their words and it is hard not to conclude the antis will follow up with actions, just as they promise. But it is one thing to sign a petition, make pledges on a website and march in the street with banners. It is something entirely different to sit in wait at a badger sett ready to take on men armed with rifles by loudly blowing into a vuvuzela.
The cull teams, meanwhile, will be working to carefully laid-down plans. Using rifles fitted with telescopic sights with night-vision capabilities, they will have worked out firing positions in relation to the badger setts and will be waiting for the mammals to emerge at dusk.
But the protesters too have their plans in place. In his interview with the Farmers Guardian, Mr Tiernan said those attempting to disrupt the cull would be positioned at cross roads inside the Somerset and Gloucestershire pilot cull zones, waiting for follow likely looking vehicles.
"When we know where culling is taking place," he said, "we will have a guy on top of a hill. He will be using binoculars with night vision and if he can see someone who looks like they are going to kill a badger he will contact groups of people."
These groups will shine their powerful torches, play their vuvuzelas and broadcast music on MP3 players. There is, apparently, no chance that anyone will stand in front of the marksmen. "We should only need to make a noise to make badgers move and put shooters off," Mr Teirnan told Farmers Guardian.
But if the protesters sound determined, so do the farmers and landowners who are paying the operational costs of the cull. In Gloucestershire and in Somerset they are desperate to get started although there is absolutely no certainty about the date the shooting might start.
NFU Somerset chairman James Small said: "The farmers are just keen to get on with it – and do it to the best of their ability." That may not be for a few weeks yet, however. The generally late spring means badgers may have bred later than usual and no one wants to be culling female badgers that may be feeding cubs.
The cull teams will be made up of experienced marksmen who have gone through extensive training. A 17-page Defra booklet, "Controlled shooting of badgers in the field under licence to prevent the spread of bovine TB in cattle" was issued in August 2012 alongside advice and guidance on running a badger culling course.
Both form the basis of the rules under which the culling teams will operate. But the widespread belief that most of those doing the actual shooting will be farmers, is not necessarily correct. Many will be from the fox control and deer-stalking fraternity and all will have undertaken and passed a written examination, answering 40 questions followed by a practical shooting test.
Only those candidates who can place three rifle rounds in a 7.5cm circle from a range of 70 metres will be licensed to take part in the cull. Throughout the actual cull, their effectiveness will be monitored, with post-mortems carried out on the shot badgers to check if they were cleanly dispatched.
When the badger cull was first mooted, some of those opposed to the idea cited risks to the public with a warning that tourism in the cull zones could be affected. So far there is no hard evidence that has happened.
Although badger culling will represent an undoubted increase in shooting activity in both Somerset and Gloucestershire at a time of year when shooting, with either rifles or shotguns is unusual, the practice of shooting large mammals with rifles is not unusual. Fox control and deer stalking takes place regularly, with no risk to the public.
The police have set aside £2 million in Somerset, over four years, to deal with any trouble. Is that too much – or not enough? Time will tell.