Farmers hail proposals for badger cull
Farmers have welcomed proposals which could give them the power to kill badgers infected with TB.
Plans for culling badgers in TB hotspots were unveiled yesterday.
Under the proposals, there will be a "pilot" cull of infected animals in two, as yet unspecified, areas of the country where the disease is most prevalent. Only if successful could it then be extended.
Farmer Phil Abbott, county spokesman for the East Midlands Livestock Board, said: "I think it's good news. We're not talking about culling healthy animals, just those infected."
The areas worst hit by the disease are the South West and West of England.
According to Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs figures, TB "incidents" were found in 52 of Leicestershire's 1,236 cattle herds last year.
Pam Mynott, a director of the Badger Trust, who lives in Oadby, said: "If anything, it will force infected badgers into areas free of the disease."
2 Comments
by NeilT60
Thursday, July 21 2011, 7:44AM
“The planned cull will be next year, the BBC headline is misleading! But I think it's not true to say that only infected badgers will be killed - the plan is to exterminate 70% of all badgers in the affected areas. This will reduce the population to a point where it's probably no longer self-sustaining, the first time there's been an official policy to cause local extinction of an indigenous species. If the pilot is a "success" it will be extended countrywide starting in 2013, so it's a possibility that the species will be totally exterminated over time and future generations will only see British badgers in photographs and old documentaries.”
by jonger
Wednesday, July 20 2011, 11:30AM
“This headline seems at odds with the other reports [There will be no badger cull in England]
http://tinyurl.com/448fd49”