Badger culling is set to begin

Official documents have been released with details of the forthcoming badger cull in Somerset and Gloucestershire
1 June 2013

Controversial culling of badgers as part of efforts to tackle TB in cattle goes ahead from this weekend, in the face of protests from animal welfare campaigners.

Some 5,000 badgers are set to be killed in two pilot culls in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset, with policing costs expected to reach £4 million to cope with potential disruption from activists.

The pilot culls aim to ensure free-running badgers can be killed humanely, with marksmen observed by independent experts to check they are killing the protected animal swiftly, and post-mortem examinations carried out to assess speed of death.

The pilots will also assess whether sufficient badgers can be killed in an area to have an effect in reducing TB in cattle, following a long-term study which found that culling 70% of badgers in an area could reduce the disease in herds by 16%.

If successful, the Government plans to roll out culling more widely in hotspots for the disease, which can be transmitted from badgers to livestock and between cattle. The costs of the cull will be borne by farmers.

But experts, including scientists behind the long-term trial, have raised concerns that the policy will have "unimpressive" results in reducing TB and suggested that it does not make economic sense.

And protesters, led by rock star Brian May, have pledged to do everything possible to stop the cull, which they claim is not justified by the science and is inhumane, with badgers potentially suffering before death or dying from infection or starvation if they are non-fatally wounded. Opponents of the cull also point to evidence that badgers move around when culling disturbs their social structures, spreading TB and increasing infection around the edges of cull area. They want a focus on vaccines against TB instead.

Campaigners say thousands of people wearing badger masks will join May and TV presenter and naturalist Bill Oddie on the streets of London on Saturday to protest against the cull and deliver a petition against the policy signed by 228,000 people to Downing Street.

The Government said the cull is necessary as part of efforts to stop spiralling numbers of outbreaks of TB in dairy and beef herds, which saw 28,000 cattle slaughtered in England last year. Without action, infection and costs would continue to soar, officials said.

Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser for the Environment Department (Defra), said the UK has lost control of the disease since the early 1980s, in the face of a number of factors including an increase in badger numbers. Prof Boyd said the UK was under pressure from Europe to get the disease under control, and that there were benefits - for example, for the live export market - to effectively tackling TB.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in