Bovine TB cost £100m a year to deal with, according to Defra, and in 2015, 28,000 cattle were slaughtered to control the spread of the disease.
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“The veterinary advice and the experience of other countries is clear-we will not be able to eradicate this disease unless we also tackle the reservoir of the disease in the badger population as well as cattle”.
Badger culling has been rolled out to more parts of England, in a bid to tackle bovine TB.
Farmers generally back the killings because they blame badgers for spreading tuberculosis to their cattle, hitting profits. “Trying to control bTB in cattle by culling badgers that don’t have bTB doesn’t make any sense”.
Ministers said the strategy was “delivering results”, while the chief vet said culling was “an essential part” of the effort to stop bovine TB.
Recent research suggests that despite strong evidence badgers transmit bTB to cattle, the disease is not passed directly between them – but instead is finding its way between wild animals and herds through the environment.
Natural England has confirmed the criteria has been met to allow seven new licenses to be issued in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire – with operations now underway.
Figures released previous year showed taxpayers forked out £7,000 for every badger killed under the cull.
“Proactive badger control is now the best available option and the licensing of further areas is necessary to realise disease control benefits at regional rather than at local levels”.
“There is still a huge amount of work ahead to ensure the eradication of bTB from this country and I would like to take this opportunity to thank farmers for their continued support in working towards this goal”. The policy is also burning a hole in the United Kingdom taxpayer’s pocket at a price of almost £7,000 per badger killed – none of which have been tested for the presence of bTB. Culling has not worked and will not work. “It is the triumph of ideology and gesture over evidence and hard science”.
“The RSPCA, along with many other animal welfare and veterinary organisations and scientific experts, has always maintained that culling is not the answer to solving the devastating problem of bovine TB”.
Dominic Dyer, the chief executive of the Badger Trust charity, also said at the time that the Government’s own evidence contradicted the policy.
“While TB infections are continuing to rise in the existing cull areas, in Wales, which uses scientifically supported techniques including rigorous TB testing, tighter controls on cattle movement, and strict biosecurity measures instead of inhumane culling, there has been a 14 per cent reduction”.
An updated online tool mapping outbreaks over the last five years is being published to help farmers buying cattle and a new farm advice pack to help farmers improve their “biosecurity measures” on farms to protect livestock from infection.
“We are concerned that, in the coming months and years, many more badgers will continue to be wounded in this way and will retreat to their setts to suffer and die painfully and slowly underground”.
So far, this cull is failing not only badgers, but farmers, cows, and tax-payers, all because the Government refuses to acknowledge that the writing’s on the wall.
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Humane Society International/UK are calling on members of the public to show their opposition to the cull by shooting selfies, not badgers, as part of the Team Badger’s Big Badger Mosaic campaign.
