Not that obscure. Not that much of a joke, either. 
The “joke” is that I took Alessan’s post as an insult and retaliated with “hominid” (a member of the great ape family, which includes humans).
Once I used “mustelid” as a joke insult for my brother, which probably made me think of it.
I must agree with Alessan. The correct statement is, “Especially if you’re a panelist on QI, those are rodents.” Not the brightest bulbs in the candelabra, though it might trigger a David Mitchell rant.
Amusingly, the minister responsible tried to get around this by arguing that the badgers had “moved the goalposts”:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24459424
Look at that man’s face. He has one of those faces. He comes across as somebody who is used to shouting at people and sacking them if they disagree with him.
"Environment Secretary Owen Paterson was asked if he had “moved the goalposts” by claiming the cull was a success. However, those behind the cull itself were denounced as “incompetent”, in the House of Lords.
Mr Paterson explained difficulties lay in the fact the operation was dealing with a wild animal. “The badgers moved the goalposts. We’re dealing with a wild animal, subject to the vagaries of the weather and disease and breeding patterns,” he said.“”
You have to wonder at the sheer cretinousness of a professional politician who (a) tries to blame the failure of his department on badgers and (b) does so in a way that positively begs for people to mock him. If he had been a US politician the whole “badgers have moved the goalposts” thing would have become a meme, spread far and wide. Alas the UK does not have a global reach. But even the commentators at the Daily Mail took the piss out of him.
He’s still at it, and I have to assume that the government secretly hates him and is subtly telling him that they don’t like him and want him to go away (he was formerly secretary of state for Northern Ireland, which even today is one of those “we don’t like you” posts).
I keep reading the title of this thread as “The Badger Cult (UK)”, and envisioning a late-'60s/ early-'70s movie about neopagans and human sacrifice.
Starring Christopher Lee as the cult leader, and Peter Cushing as a badger.
Why not? They’re obviously not an endangered species.
I’m not sure, to be honest - most of my attempts to find out why it’s illegal were met with answers like “it’s illegal because it’s against the law.”
But at a guess, I’d say it’s because there’s a history of cruel things like badger-baiting, and it’s easiest just to pass a law that says “leave badgers the fuck alone.”
WAG: Perhaps the population density requires less of a laissez-faire attitude to wildlife than the US can get away with. There’s not a lot of land that isn’t privately owned and used for something, especially as you get closer to the south east. Even finding somewhere for some discreet wild camping is difficult. So if everyone could kill the badgers on their land, or dig up their setts, we could probably wipe them out pretty quickly. In the UK, I believe wildlife is protected by law unless on a list of “stuff we don’t care if you kill”. The list is pretty short, and animal cruelty laws might still apply. Presumably you can get some kind of licence to shoot animals not on the list, but there’s not a lot of call for hunting here, and those who do enjoy it seem to be happy to stick to pheasants, grouse, rabbits or whatever, rather than going on some macabre taxidermy-fuelled safari.
In many if not all places in the US it is the same. You cannot hunt game without a license or tag, even if it’s your own property, and then only during specified seasons. Exceptions may be for coyote, etc. There is no change in the law if something crosses an invisible property line; it’s not automatically “yours.” There are special tags sometimes that are easier for property owners to get, e.g. tags for nuisance animals that might damage farmland.
As do the vast majority of hunters in the US and everywhere. We aren’t talking about hunting rhinoceros. Do you think that a guy who mounts a buck head is also not dealing with the meat?
Depends which guy you mean. But I don’t think many hunters in the west are primarily motivated by a desire to find food. My point was only that, as far as I know, there isn’t much call for shooting larger mammals here.
In this country we are animal lovers. Badgers were once in decline, and now aren’t people are very fond of them. Bill Oddie, for example.
Hacker: One: I am not a “badger-butcher”. Two: badgers are not an endangered species. Three: the removal of protective status does not necessarily mean the badgers will be killed. Four: if a few badgers have to be sacrificed for the sake of a master plan that will save Britain’s natural heritage - tough!
Lucy: [sarcastically gives a Nazi salute] Ze “master plan”, mein Fuhrer! Ze end justifies ze means, does it?!
– Yes, Minister
Woman: How would you feel if you were going to have a lot of office blocks built over your garden by a lot of giant badgers?
Jim: But a lot of office blocks are … giant badgers?
– Also
Googling ‘“yes minister” badger’ also brought up this.
In short, as a nation we prefer fluffy beasts to humans.
The badger cull was debated in the House of Lords? To cries of “hear, hear, hear”?
Now I have to dig up the YouTube video; it sounds priceless.
Here in Ohio we don’t need government-sponsored culls to take out our excess raccoons, opossums and skunks. We eliminate them sportingly with our sport utility vehicles.
I found a website with a picture of the leaflet from the OP:
They are kind of cute. Except for the brucellosis thing.
Probably. The RSPCA was founded 60 years before the NSPCC.