Full Title Name:  Good Badger, Bad Badger: The Impact of Perspective on Wildlife Law and Policy

Summary: The Law Commission of England and Wales is examining how the country’s rich patchwork of wildlife laws might be updated. At the same time the government, advocates, and the public are in the midst of a vigorous debate over whether badgers should be culled in an effort to control the spread bovine tuberculosis within the United Kingdom. Both of these efforts highlight how divergent views regarding our relationship to wildlife and the natural environment in the 21st century influence both broad questions regarding the structure of laws and regulations affecting wildlife, generally, as well as how to approach very specific problems and issues. While these sorts of debates over wildlife are not new, the vast majority of the population in the U.K. and many other industrialized countries has lost much of its connection to the wild as urbanization has continued to grow. Accordingly, what is new in today’s world is the degree to which popular support for one or another position advanced by interested parties depends not upon actual experience with nature and wildlife but rather with the popular public image of the wildlife at issue—and whether they are perceived as either “good” or “bad”.