Between the badger and the barrel of a gun Yesterday firefighters were still damping down a blaze that gutted a new £16 million police firing range in nearby Bristol, which was due to open in January. Anarchist groups claim they started the fire on Monday to coincide with the beginning of the cull as part of a "night of action" against the authorities. On every evening since then, protesters have set out to disrupt the marksmen in the woods. Badgers, which have rootled through Britain since the Ice Age, are among the most revered wild animals on earth. Under the Protection of Badgers Act, 1992, it is illegal to hunt, kill, harass or disturb them. Supporters of the cull say this has led to a population explosion. The best estimates of the number of British badgers vary from 300,000 to 500,000 - some suggest nearly double that. The much-loved status of the animal has created deep divisions as the cull gets under way. Opponents including Queen guitarist Brian May, Dame Judi Dench and the BBC presenter Chris Packham, who has branded those carrying out the badger cull as "brutalist, thugs, liars and frauds," say the science is shaky at best. In the late 1990s, the government appointed an independent commission to study the problem. The 10-year report concluded - at a cost of £50 million - that the benefits of proactive culling were modest. Instead, campaigners want the emphasis to be on vaccines and tighter on-farm and cattle-movement measures. However, with bovine TB costing taxpayers £100 million last year, a figure that could rise to £1 billion over the next decade, Defra now says further research has revealed culling to be a viable long-term solution. The aim is to reduce badger populations by at least 70 per cent in the designated areas - whether the animals are healthy or not - and to assess the effectiveness of free shooting before rolling out any nationwide cull. Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, who kept two orphaned badgers named Bessy and Baz as pets while growing up, claims the cull could result in the disease being wiped out over the next 25 years. He says the favourite game he used to play with his beloved Bessy was "rough and tumble." Over in Somerset, there is certainly plenty of that going on. The protesters are split between law-abiding, largely middle-class professionals heading out for night patrols to scare badgers away, and hardcore saboteurs - known as "sabs" - willing to go to more extreme lengths. There have been incidents of landowners being intimidated by trespassing saboteurs, while marksmen have been subjected to threatening letters and cold-calling. Yesterday it was reported that Meg Sunningdale, a 66-year-old resident of Withycombe, near Minehead, had plastered posters around her village "naming and shaming" a neighbour for allegedly being a cull marksman. The nearby Orchard Wyndham estate, which dates from the 13th century, has been on "lockdown" in recent weeks. "It's because of these people running around that we've got to keep it shut at all times," says one 77-year-old tenant on the estate who does not wish to be named. They came around about two months ago and stuck their stickers everywhere. There was a big group wearing hoods taking photographs around the estate. We seem to be hearing such emotive rubbish about injured badgers, but these marksmen are experts. They're not going to make mistakes. Jay Tiernan, a 42-year-old veteran animal rights activist from protest group Stop the Cull, was arrested after reportedly trying to enter a Defra site in Gloucestershire. He says about 60 veteran saboteurs are in operation in the area, with at least the same number of amateur enthusiasts wanting to get involved. Tiernan, named in an injunction brought by the National Farmers Union to stop people "intimidating or harassing" farmers, is one of the ringleaders of the protest. I met him during the eviction of members of a ramshackle site called Camp Badger, set up on land next to a heritage steam railway in the village of Watchet. He is still sporting a large bruise on his forehead sustained, he says, during his arrest (he was later released without charge). The badger cull has been billed as a largely town-versus-country debate. In western Somerset, dotted with cattle farms, many support it - although the vehemence of the protests means they are often unwilling to speak up. Some 28,000 cattle were slaughtered last year in England. Each individual outbreak costs an average of £34,000, with farmers having to pay £12,000 and £22,000 borne by the taxpayer. "The number of farms which have been affected is unbelievable," says agricultural contractor Dwayne Rice, 20, who works on a farm near Minehead. This year we have seen about 20 to 25 farms locked down because of TB [contracted by cattle inhaling bacteria or coming into contact with badger secretions]. It's tough going. Many of the marksmen are often the farmers themselves. The Telegraph has spoken to several who say they have been highly trained for the task and equipped with high-velocity silenced rifles with "night-vision ability." The badgers have to be shot at 80 yards or less using expanding ammunition designed to kill humanely. They are also adept at keeping well out of sight. I head out on night patrol with the Somerset Badger Watch from the village of Stogumber, where shots were heard the previous evening. Our group includes engineers, a graphic designer and a psychotherapist, all of whom say they will be out every night they can over the next six weeks in between work and family commitments. Despite working with the saboteurs, they stick to public footpaths and are not prepared to break the law. We drive in a convoy of family cars - the vehicle in front is a twin-exhaust Jaguar S-type - and park up near St Mary's church, whose bells toll as the clock strikes 7pm. High- visibility vests are handed out and we head into thick countryside. One villager stands at her front door clapping as we pass. From inside the pub, others glare suspiciously. Darkness falls. The beams from our torches criss-cross the moonlit fields and copses where we encounter abandoned badger sets. Owls hoot and bats swoop past. Lights flash in the distance. I'm told our movements are being tracked - by whom, nobody seems certain. It is easy to become paranoid. At one point, after hearing voices from the other side of a hedgerow, our group suddenly starts running full-pelt to a gate at the end of a field. Those on the other side of the hedge do the same. It is only when they bump into each other at the bottom that they realise they are on the same side. We encounter a group of saboteurs in a car and swap information with a long-haired man puffing frantically on an electronic cigarette, before skirting farms past barking dogs and blinking alarm systems. But despite walking for hours, we don't come across any marksmen - or badgers. There are, as of yet, no figures available for how many of the animals have been killed so far. But Mr Badger of Wind in the Willows was always a solitary sort. He would be wise to stay in character for the next few weeks, burrowed deep down in the red soil, as his only known predator stalks the earth above. Be they in pursuit of him, or each other. Additional reporting by Louise Gray