Comments on the dilemma in the June issue: 'Being a badger's advocate'

The dilemma in the June issue concerned considering things from the badger's perspective during a public debate on bovine TB and the badger cull (In Practice, May 2012, volume 34, pages 350-351). Glen Cousquer argued that to be a badger's representative one would need to ensure its position was taken into account and suggested that a way of doing so was to recognise the badger as an individual, rather this than taking an anthropocentric view and considering the badger as just one of a population or species. He proposed that this shift in perspective would highlight exactly whose fate was being debated and could challenge the distancing' language that was often used when discussing such issues.