Irish Times columnist Michael Viney has highlighted the ongoing assault on Ireland's badger population by the Department of Agriculture. "The Government’s culling programme in areas of TB outbreak has so far killed about 100,000 badgers," he wrote in his March 26th column. Also reported were fears that the badger could become extinct in Ireland in the near future - "Scientific estimates of their total national population have fallen successively: 148,000 in 1995, 84,000 in 2009, to 60,000 in 2012 – a trend that could suggest extinction by 2020." Read the full article at http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/another-life-a-long-wait-for-the-badgers-chocolate-bars-1.2585993