BBOWT condemns summer badger cull

The cull, aimed at reducing bovine tuberculosis (TB), has been supported by Newbury MP Richard Benyon.
However BBOWT spokesman Matt Jackson said: “This is bad policy based on bad science and will not stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis (TB).
“The Government should be investing more in cattle vaccinations instead of licensing the cull of 70 per cent of badgers in the two trial areas.”
Mr Benyon, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Natural Environment, Water and Rural Affairs at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said the disease was “rampant” in some part of the country and that culling was currently the only practical option.
However last October Mr Benyon, who is a cattle farmer himself, told the Newbury Weekly News he hoped it would not prove necessary to allow culling in West Berkshire.
The Government has confirmed that it will go ahead with trial culls of badgers in parts of west Gloucestershire and west Somerset from June 1.
The decision to press ahead with the six-week cull comes despite a Parliamentary vote in October last year which called for the culling to be abandoned.
The culling will be carried out by trained marksmen.