News - Northern Ireland proposed cull update
February 2009
In a recent letter from the Environment Minister’s Private Office, the Northern Ireland Badger Group has been told that:
“DARD has not applied to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) for a licence to progress their Bovine TB Strategy delivery plan through ‘a badger removal programme’ and if an application is received the Minister and his officials will give it due consideration.”
However, the letter avoided any reference to the licence that the NIEA has already issued to DARD to allow it to take badgers for ‘scientific purposes’. We now know that this licence was granted in October 2008 and we are seeking further details. This ‘scientific intervention’ is thought to involve 365 badger setts, each containing several badgers, in County Down and we believe it is a ‘limited’ badger cull arrived at by stealth.
This study is certain to involve the gassing or ‘trapping’ of badgers. In this context ‘trapping’ is often a euphemism for the use of snares, the favoured method in the Republic where it is responsible for killing almost 6000 badgers annually. Apart from the serious welfare concerns, this scale of interference with badgers in any area will have a profound affect on the population dynamics of the species which experience has shown to be counterproductive in the control of bovine TB.
The Environment Minister, Sammy Wilson, has granted this licence against the advice of the entire environmental community in Northern Ireland, including the Committee for Nature Conservation and the Countryside. The CNCC is a group of experts appointed to advise government, however on this occasion their collective advice has been disregarded in the pursuit of political expediency. Badgers may be innocent, but they can’t vote ad the government doesn't seem to be listening...
Petition
As well as our online petition, email and letter campaign (see www.badgersni.org.uk/nocull.html) a ‘paper’ petition can be downloaded from www.badgersni.org.uk/petition.pdf. If you would like more information about any of this, please contact Mike at badgers@badgersni.org.uk.
Coming soon - NI Badger Group report ‘Badgers and bovine tuberculosis in Northern Ireland’ watch this space: www.badgersni.org.uk