Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BADGER BLOODBATH
Tories approve biggest cull of 40,000 animals
MORE than 40,000 badgers face being slaughtered in the biggest cull by the Tories.
The animals will be shot in 32 areas across 10 English counties in a bid to wipe out TB in cattle, the Government said yesterday.
A total of 40,892 could be killed under Defra’s plans, more than double the 19,724 culled last year. It has granted 11 new cull licences, which include Staffordshire and Cumbria for the first time.
Badger Trust’s Dominic Dyer blasted Environment Secretary Michael Gove for pushing the species “to the verge of extinction”.
He added: “By 2020, over 150,000 are likely to have been killed.”
Experts say badgers fuel the spread of TB in cattle. Farming Minister George Eustice said outbreaks had halved where the scheme first took place. He said in a Commons statement: “In Gloucestershire the rate has dropped from 10.4% before culling to 5.6%… in Somerset from 24% to 12%.” But Mr Dyer said: “If the Government really wishes to reduce the spread of TB in badgers, it should introduce a vaccination programme.” A DAVID Hockney painting is set to sell for £62 million – a record for a living artist.
Bradford-born Hockney, 81, painted the 10ft by 7ft Portrait of an Artist in 1972 from photos taken in the South of France.
It features a man swimming in a pool with Hockney’s ex-boyfriend, artist Peter Schlesinger, looking down at him.
The present owner is believed to be billionaire Spurs owner Joe Lewis.
Christie’s will sell the painting in November.
The current record for a work by a living artist is the £4.5million paid in 2013 for American Jeff Koons’ Orange Balloon Dog sculpture.