Badgers in Wales are over a barrel, or will soon be facing two barrels, at uncomfortably close quarters.
The Welsh Assembly’s decision to cull large numbers of this protected species in a hopeless attempt to control bovine TB, was announced yesterday, despite ministers not knowing how much it will cost, how or where they will do it or how many they will kill. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn is soon to decide whether to allow a badger cull in England, a move that will not work either. Instead, culling badgers could well increase TB in cattle, because infected animals escaping the massacre will take it away with them into areas they would otherwise never have ventured. The money and time spent researching badgers and TB has shown how the disease should be controlled and this does not involve a cull. A vaccine for TB in badgers is years away and its development is a more rational use of public money. And if fences were erected to keep badgers away from livestock and their feed, the chances of badgers infecting cattle or cattle infecting badgers would be vastly reduced. Mr Benn has been delaying his decision for some months. He knows that a mass of scientific evidence shows that badger culling is not the answer to controlling bovine TB. He must stick to his guns now, not point them at badgers, and accelerate work to find vaccines.
It is now September 2009 and they are likely to go ahead with the cull in Wales. I'm not scientific at all but this is the 21st century. Surely we have found ways other than mass slaughter of our animals. It disgusts me. I can think of another animal I would like to slaughter (but I won 't) for the trouble they cause :)))