The government has today confirmed that it will introduce a major cull on British badgers as part of efforts to control the spread of bovine TB in cattle.
In an oral statement to Parliament, the Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, Caroline Spelman, set out plans for a culling policy which will grant farmers licenses to arrange for the shooting of badgers on their land.
Today's announcement comes just a week after former Government adviser Lord Krebs publicly rejected badger culling as an ‘ineffective' method of addressing bovine TB (1).
The government has yet to publish the responses to its consultation on badger control.
Green Party leader, and MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, an honorary vice president of the RSPCA and a longtime campaigner on animal protection issues, said:
"The decision by Defra to give the go-ahead for a barbaric slaughter of badgers in our countryside shows a shocking disregard for animal welfare - and flies in the face of scientific evidence on the spread of bovine TB.
"The belief that badger culling represents an effective solution has already been disproven.
"After a nine year randomised cull trial which cost the UK taxpayer £50m and destroyed 10,000 badgers, the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB concluded that ‘badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain'.
"Even the Government adviser responsible for a 10-year experimental cull in the 1990s, Lord Krebs, has now rejected the method.
"Perhaps it is this lack of evidence to support the policy that has made Defra so reluctant to publish the results of its consultation."
Caroline continued: "Eighty per cent of bovine TB transmission is thought to be caused by cattle-to-cattle infection.
"Given that it is a respiratory disease, this high rate can be attributed to the trend towards intensive dairy farming, in which cattle are kept in crowded conditions.
"Rather than cruel and ineffective mass culling, restrictions on cattle movement and contact between badgers and cattle should be given high priority, in addition to greater efforts to introduce a vaccination programme."
Notes
1) www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/11/badger-culling-ineffective-krebs