Badger cull not the answer to bovine TB (From Echo)

Badger cull not the answer to bovine TB

2:58pm Wednesday 30th November 2011 in Letters

The Government will soon be making a statement on whether to cull our most ancient Briton, the badger.

In the light of this, I would like to point out that there has been no cull in Scotland, but it is free of bovine TB.

There was a cull in Ireland, but TB remains a major problem, and they are trying vaccine. There are no badgers on the Isle of Anglesley, but they have bovine TB.

In the area of Wales planned for a cull, bovine TB levels have dropped 7 per cent in the first three months of this year without a cull.

The badger, here for 250,000 years, and the most iconic of British wildlife, is already persecuted, despite enjoying legal protection.

The Government plans to allow farmers to shoot free- ranging badgers at night. Anyone who knows badgers’ behaviour will see the idiocy of this plan. If the cull goes ahead it will cause immense suffering and is inhumane.

The £400,000 the Government has spent planning this cull would have been better spent developing a vaccine programme for badgers and cattle, along with stricter control of cattle movement.

Culling badgers is not the answer to this problem.

Patricia Walker
Elm Road
Hadleigh