England
Introduction - In the past 33 years, badgers have been scapegoated and killed by numerous means. Gassing of badgers with cyanide gas in the 1970's, followed by live trapping and shooting until 2005.
The farming organisations and farmers are continuing to blame badgers for bovine TB and are still trying to pressurise the government and DEFRA into another intense, protracted badger slaughter programme. Using snippets of 'science' to prove their point, rather than changing their own destructive farming methods. They have allies in the powerful farming lobby groups, vested interest veterinary organisations, who make money from the farming industry and people like apologist Sir King.
The 30+ year, £50 million badger slaughter policy has failed miserably. Bovine TB in cattle has spread to South Wales, Cumbria, Scotland and the Midlands (where next?). Often, bTB jumps miles to unaffected areas. Badgers do not travel these great distances. But cattle do, especially since B.S.E. and the latest farming disease outbreak of Foot and Mouth (FMD) in 2001 which has direct correlation to the increase in bTB in cattle when farmers hit by FMD restocked their farms.
Officials at the National Trust say they do not plan to cooperate with the forthcoming badger cull in Wales and others that may follow in England, potentially creating a significant hurdle for the badger culls as the killers will not have access to large areas of land.
Since the last RBCT finished in 2005, DEFRA and the Central Science Laboratory (CSL) have been looking at other ways to kill badgers. "Research by the Central Science Laboratory has concluded that
snaring is inhumane and gas cannot be delivered to badger setts in
sufficient concentrations. This only leaves two options. Night
shooting is hopelessly slow, dangerous, labour intensive and unlikely
to kill sufficient badgers. Cage trapping followed by shooting will
inevitably be subject to interference by some of the 96 per cent of
people who oppose badger culling." - Trevor Lawson, the Badger Trust
Overdue tests in Great Britain - In Great Britain, 4,381 herds were overdue for their test at the end of November 2007. As the table below shows, there appears to be a direct correlation between the number of herds overdue for a TB test and the proportion of TB infection in the region / country. This may be because missing a TB test allows infection to spread more widely both within the herd and to neighbouring herds.
Region/country |
% herds overdue |
% herds under restriction |
|---|---|---|
| Scotland | 1.60% | 1.78% |
| North | 3.05% | 4.13% |
| East | 3.93% | 5.38% |
| Wales | 7.97% | 14.54% |
| West | 8.25% | 15.47% |