The Home Office's intention to kill badgers because of bovine TB makes no sense after the recent independent 10-year study by top scientists.

They concluded "badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the control of cattle TB".

Some badgers have it by eating insects on cow pats but can't easily pass it on.

It was unheard of in badgers before the 1950s. Modern dairy farming is so intense, with cows producing up to 120 pints of milk a day, that they are riddled with diseases such as mastitis and exhausted from overwork.

Their immunity is in tatters and most are slaughtered at five or six years old.

Yet the Government won't be organising tests on dead badgers. It's likely that they know the tests will show most badgers are clear of the disease. Badgers will be baited into cages then shot, or shot from a distance so some will end up injured and die slowly.

Baiting with dogs as a night sport, and victims of cars already kill one in five badgers each year. A clear way out is to refuse to be part of the factory farming system and choose soya milk, which would also avoid the pain of separation between mother and calf which continues many times every day.

Chris Seal, Leicester.