Leading animal welfare charity, Humane Society International UK, welcomes the abandonment of the planned roll out of badger culling to new areas of England this year as “a welcome U-turn but a damning indictment on DEFRA’s failed policy”. However, it also calls for the abandonment of plans to continue culling in Somerset and Gloucestershire.
The decision not to roll out culling to new areas but to continue the cull in the ‘pilot zones’ comes on the same day as publication of the Independent Expert Panel report which concludes that the pilot culls failed the ‘effectiveness’ test, and as many as 18 percent of badgers killed in the pilot culls last year took more than 5 minutes to die, failing the Government’s own ‘humaneness’ test.
Mark Jones, vet and executive director of Humane Society International UK, is a Gloucestershire resident who took part in numerous Wounded Badger Patrols during the culls last year. Jones said:
“Whilst the abandonment of the planned badger cull roll out this year is a welcome U-turn as well as a damning indictment on DEFRA’s failed culling policy, it is nonetheless utterly indefensible that the government is carrying on regardless with its discredited cull in Gloucestershire and Somerset. In the face of overwhelming scientific consensus that culling badgers can make no meaningful contribution to tackling bovine TB, damning evidence from post mortems, Natural England observations and the IEP report that the pilot culls were inhumane and caused unacceptable badger suffering, and considerable political and public opposition to further badger persecution, it is unacceptable for DEFRA to condemn hundreds more badgers in Gloucestershire and Somerset to a senseless slaughter. This decision will lead to further chaos, cruelty and community division in these areas for absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
“DEFRA is doing farmers no favours by continuing to push this futile badger slaughter. The Government’s own figures show that we were already getting bTB under control before a single badger was shot last year, just as Professor John Bourne of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial science panel predicted we would. As we did in the 1950s and 60s, by increasing cattle testing intensity, improving farm biosecurity and controlling cattle movements, we have achieved a significant decrease in cattle TB incidence. In Wales, the numbers of cattle slaughtered through bovine TB has been halved over the past 4 years, without any badgers being killed, and progress is also being made in England. Culling badgers risks unravelling all that good work. Farmers in Gloucestershire and Somerset are being led down a failed path and Owen Paterson is leading the way like the Pied Piper.”
Prof. John Bourne chaired the Independent Scientific Group which oversaw the design, analysis and reporting of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Prof Bourne wrote in the ISG’s final report published 2007:
> ‘…badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in Britain’
> ‘…implementation of cattle control measures outlined in this report are, in the absence of badger culling, likely to reverse the increasing trend in cattle disease incidence’
> ‘It is unfortunate that agricultural and veterinary leaders continue to believe, in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, that the main approach to cattle TB control must involve some form of badger population control’
