Badgers won’t be culled on reserves
CHESHIRE Wildlife Trust (CWT) has refused to let badger culls take place on its reserves after the policy was given the go-ahead by the Government.
Badger culls have been approved in Cheshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Somerset.
Almost 15,000 badgers have been killed since culls began in 2013.
CWT’s director of conservation Martin Varley said the organisation was ‘dismayed’ to discover the Government had granted a licence for culling the animals in the county.
He said: “Our trust, alongside Wildlife Trusts across the UK, remain opposed to this cull on the basis that scientific evidence indicates that culling is unlikely to make a significant improvement in cattle infection rates.
“Our view is it is better to concentrate on vaccination of ● cattle, and increased biosecurity on land in the short-term as more effective means of control.
“We work closely with many farmers and recognise the pain and hardship of those whose cattle herds have been devastated by bovine tuberculosis (bTB), but killing badgers will not solve the problem.
“Like all Wildlife Trusts, we feel that this cull is going against science and that the Government should be instead be putting more resources into speeding up the development of an effective cattle vaccine, amongst other measures.”
A CWT spokesman said the Government has spent almost £450,000 on communications equipment alone to support the culls between 2016 and 2017 and suggested it could have been invested in cattle vaccine research or used to vaccinate nearly 5,500 badgers.
Mr Varley added: “We would encourage people to support and volunteer with Wirral And Cheshire Badger Group who have an ongoing badger vaccination programme, and we welcome the announcement that there will be enough supplies of vaccine to allow Defra’s Badger Edge Vaccination Scheme to resume in 2018.”