In 2013 more than 300,000 people supported a petition opposing the cull on Badgers, along with this an independent expert panel was appointed by DEFRA, that panel deemed the cull as ineffective and inhumane along with saying that the culls had no significant improvement on eradicating TB.
In November this year a review had stated that the badger cull only had a modest effect in reducing TB, with Veterinary surgeons saying DEFRA’s figures are unclear and opaque and that there has actually been increased prevalence. Even after all of the culls England has the highest incidence of bovine TB in Europe.
Along with the culls not working as expected, TB in cattle costs the taxpayer £100m in compensation per year and the current test used to identify TB is so unreliable it misses many of the infections.
In a recent review Professor Sir Charles Godfrey stated that farmers were more to blame due to moving cattle from high risk TB areas to low risk areas in the country. A two year pause in the cull has been requested to test other ways to lower TB in cattle. So far the government has forked out around £40 million on the badger cull, With Vaccinations only costing £700,000 over four years.
The report has recommended more research in vaccinations, more accurate testing and microchipping to actually track cattle movement in the UK. With DEFRA unwilling to allow an independent review on their statistics it seems more and more likely that the public are being lied to in regards to the reasoning behind killing our protected wildlife. There is another way to control TB but currently the government seem unwilling to investigate these avenues.
Jack Cox
