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Badger Culling Due To Begin Amid Protests

Badger Culling Due To Begin Amid Protests

Some 5,000 badgers are likely to be killed in two pilot culls, in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset, which are expected to attract potential disruption and estimated policing costs of around £4m.

While the culling season has opened today, the pilots are not expected to start immediately, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said.

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

The schemes will also assess whether enough badgers can be killed in a given area to have an effect in reducing TB in cattle.

A long-term study has found that culling 70% of badgers would be needed to 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.

They say the measure 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. Instead, they want a focus on vaccines against TB.

The UK is working on vaccines, with £50m already spent or earmarked for research.

But officials say it could be 10 years before a cattle vaccine is available for use without EU trade restrictions.

Hundreds of people - some wearing badger masks, others with their faces painted black and white - have joined May and TV presenter and naturalist Bill Oddie on the streets of London 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.

Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser for 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.

Farming Minister David Heath said: "Nobody wants to kill badgers but the scientific evidence and experience of countries tells us that we will not get on top of Bovine TB without addressing infection in wildlife as well as cattle.

"A badger vaccine has practical difficulties and there is not yet any evidence on its effectiveness."

But shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said: "Incompetent Defra ministers are pressing ahead with a badger cull despite scientists warning against this untested and risky approach.

"The policing costs, paid by the taxpayer, will balloon to £4m while bovine TB will increase in the next two years as the shooting displaces badgers. We need a science-led policy to manage cattle movements better and a vaccine to tackle TB in cattle."

Labour plans to force a vote in Parliament on the culls next Wednesday by using their Opposition Day debate to raise the issue.

Philip Mansbridge, chief executive of animal charity Care for the Wild, said: "The badger cull has no scientific, economic or animal welfare justification.

"The Government and the NFU are blindly embarking on one of the worst agricultural policies of the past 30 years, which will lead to senseless slaughter, chaos and disruption in the countryside, huge cost to the taxpayer and no meaningful reduction in the spread of bovine TB."