Tell the government to back off badgers!
September 27, 2010 by Badger Watching Man
OK. I may be busy at the moment, but that doesn’t of course mean that I’m not perfectly aware of what the government is planning to do to England’s badgers. Not only is the proposed cull wholly unscientific, they’re planning to do it on the cheap by asking farmers to shoot the badgers on their land. The entire business has the makings of a complete shambles, and all for no appreciable benefit other than political maneuvering. That’s the annoying thing. If a cull was necessary for some reason then it would be understandable, but this is just nonsense.
All of which means that I’m very happy to reproduce the e-mail I received today via the Bedfordshire Badger Network. I’ll be writing to my MP again soon (Nadine Dorries – she never did reply to my last e-mail, by the way) and I urge others to do the same.
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| Dear Supporter,
We urgently need your help to convince the government that badger culling is wrong.
The coalition government has announced a public consultation on whether a badger cull should go ahead. The public has been given until Wednesday, 8 December to express their views.
The RSPCA remains firmly opposed to any plans for a widespread cull based on current science, welfare concerns and practicality. The government proposal says that the cull would need to involve the killing of badgers over an area of 150km² and, within the cull area at least 70 per cent of the badger population would need to be eradicated, including thousands of healthy animals.
The consultation proposes that farmers and landowners be given full responsibility for funding and carrying out culling and/or vaccination measures and we are concerned that this would make the welfare issues involved with killing badgers worse and would be near impossible to monitor.
Scientific evidence suggests that culling badgers in an area initially increases bTB infection in cattle in the surrounding areas, and achieves only a limited reduction within the area targeted. It concluded that, “badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain”.
We believe that the government should listen to public opinion (the previous consultation on a badger cull showed 95 per cent of respondents were opposed to a cull) and focus instead on the use of an approved TB vaccine for badgers along with other control methods.
There are a number of ways that you can voice your opposition to a badger cull:
Many thanks for your support,
RSPCA Campaign Team |
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