And they wanted confirmation of one key policy in particular: a cull of badgers to combat bovine tuberculosis.
It aims for a cull of 300, 000 of Malaysia's stock of 2.3m pigs.
They were only the most obvious casualties of a cull of City workers that threatened to be long and broad.
The RCN has long been campaigning about what it sees as a cull of jobs in the NHS as trusts tighten their belts.
Plans for a cull of badgers in west Somerset and Gloucestershire to try to reduce levels of bovine TB have been put on hold until the summer.
Breakfast Time trumped the rival ITV offering in the early ratings battle, which led to a cull of employees at TV-am including Peter Jay, Anna Ford and Angela Rippon in favour of "people-next-door" Anne Diamond and Nick Owen.
As a rule of thumb, a careful cull of the 10% of lowest performers can make a firm leaner by removing fat without damaging muscle.
Plans for a pilot cull of badgers within a 288 sq km (111 sq miles) area of south-west Wales were outlined in September 2008.
Sweden has suspended a controversial cull of its wolf population shortly after it began because of a legal challenge by conservationists.
Queen guitarist Brian May has spoken out against a planned cull of badgers in the West Country.
"Before we came into the area we got Rentokill to come in on the site to do a cull basically of the existing rat holes, " he said.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Residents angry over rat upsurge
While Madrid is right to call for a more aggressive cull of bad loans, its move to restore confidence in the banking sector has left it with little choice but to rescue Bankia.
FORBES: It's the Mutual, Not For Profit, Banks Which Are the Problem in Spain
By tweaking the design of a cull - expanding the central killing zone, and choosing sites carefully to take advantage of hard boundaries like rivers and motorways - Defra's chief veterinary officer Nigel Gibbens argues it should be possible to maximise the positive impact on bovine TB infection rates in cattle.
Because the government has run out of money it is forced into a position where it has to look at costs and therefore it has identified that if it reduces TB it can save itself quite a bit of money, so the possibility of a badger cull is now on the agenda.
And with treating bats with fungicide or a mass cull an impossibility because of the sheer numbers involved, a solution is a long way off.
What we need is a way to cull the best of these from the pack without going through the laborious process of doing it ourselves.
People will avoid Somerset this summer because of a planned badger cull in the county, a tourism organisation claimed.
Last month, a poll for the BBC suggested a majority of Britons in both town and country opposed a badger cull.
The planned cull is part of a joint effort by the Northern Ireland Republic of Ireland governments to try to stamp out foot-and-mouth disease.
Ten days later, a panel of indie veterans will cull the fat, and select finalists based on not only the game itself, but the social media efforts of its development team.
ENGADGET: OUYA and Kill Screen announce CREATE Game Jam, bait developers with $45,000 in prizes
Steve Tatlock, Lake District National Park Authority ranger, described the cull as the end of a long process.
The Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has accused people opposed to the cull of being seized by a "Wind in the Willows sentimentality".
BBC: Badgers: Splitting public opinion for more than 200 years
So in an attempt not to bore loved ones with a barrage of imagery, I will cull the best photos from my storage drives, as well as those taken by friends and others, and share a short tale associated with that image.
Then in April the plight of one animal captured the imagination of the public when Phoenix the calf was spared from the cull on a Devon farm after surviving for five days under a mound of slaughtered cattle.
Keith Price from the Independent Methodist Church refused a tenancy application from Kira Izzard and Laura Cull because of their sexuality.
The parliamentary committee Mr Wright chairs is expected to back the principle of targets but to advocate a drastic cull in their number.
The government has previously said the cull of badgers is necessary as part of a "science-led" programme to tackle TB - which has been devastating to farmers.
Anti-cull protesters, led by the Badger Trust, argued it had not yet been scientifically proven that badgers are implicated in the transmission of TB within cattle and it doubts a cull would help eradicate the disease.
Gareth Cull kicked eight conversions and two penalties for a personal haul of 22 points.
应用推荐