British government’s senseless badger killing

This 2011 video is about a badger family in Germany.

Widening of badger culls provokes condemnation

Wednesday 31st August 2016

ANIMAL rights activists condemned the government’s decision yesterday to double badger culls in an attempt to combat tuberculosis (TB) in cattle.

Exterminations were already under way in three English counties and the government has now granted licences for culls in seven more areas across Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Cornwall, Devon and Dorset.

The government aims to wipe out 70 per cent of the badger population in these areas.

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Last year, more than 28,000 cattle were slaughtered in England in an effort to control the disease.

The cull was welcomed by the National Union of Farmers, but condemned by the Labour Party, the Greens and the League Against Cruel Sports as inhumane and ineffective in combating bovine TB.

Chris Pitt, the league’s deputy campaigns director, said: “Instead of shooting badgers, we need to be looking to Wales as an example, where no culling takes place, but instead rigorous TB testing, strict cattle movement control and tight biosecurity has been more successful in preventing the spread of TB in cattle.”

An independent report by an expert panel in the first year found “controlled shooting” — of free-running badgers — could not deliver the level of culling needed to be effective and was not humane.

Shadow environment secretary Rachael Maskell said: “The decision to extend the badger cull flies in the face of the government’s own evidence that shows the killing of thousands of badgers has not reduced the number of cattle contracting bovine TB.”