Culling badgers
There is only one thing I can say in response to Mark’s column (My way of thinking, January 2020) – I completely agree with everything he says. I have every sympathy with farmers who are battling bovine TB but exterminating a species is clearly not the answer.
I am privileged to have badger setts on my three-acre, wild property and they are regularly seen roaming near our house from dusk onwards and often in broad daylight.
To know they are being killed in huge numbers across the country is heart-breaking.
Linda Towe, Wiltshire
I completely agree with Mark’s views on the badger cull. It’s disgusting. I’m currently in Year 12 and last year I did my GCSE English speech on conservation, during which I brought up
the badger cull and how awful it was. I thought it might’ve changed since then but I can see it is still the same, if not worse. Lucy Reed, via email
How strange that you are happy to condemn the cull of badgers in your January issue, but not squirrels. So red squirrels are ‘fighting back’? Not without our intervention and our cruelty – grey squirrels are being caught in traps, thrown into bags and clubbed to death. People who condone this are no animal lovers! Just sentimental, romantic and nostalgic, dare I say. Just because a squirrel is grey, doesn’t make it any less a part of our UK wildlife.
Zoe Cordon, London
Mark seems to take a very strong view against badger culling, because bovine TB is also transmitted in other ways. This is true, but does he accept the need to control the badger population? It is likely that the large and uncontrolled numbers of badgers are responsible for serious reductions in, for example, the beloved hedgehog population. Lovely as they are, badgers are omnivores and enjoy feeding on ground-nesting and dwelling birds and mammals. Ray Cox, via email
Mark Carwardine replies:
I’m afraid I don’t accept the need to control badgers. It’s a myth that they are to blame for hedgehog declines. They do kill hedgehogs, and can be serious competition for food, but the two species have co-existed for thousands of years. Hedgehogs are in trouble because of degraded and lost habitats, less food and more road kill.
Don't miss our special report on the badger cull next issue. CORRECTIONS March 2020: Pangolins in Peril, p60: the giant ground pangolin is now listed as Endangered, not Vulnerable.