We are calling for an enquiry & audit of the badger cull as an effective tool in the control of bovine TB

The Badger Cull is a scandal and a tragedy, driven by ignorance and lies.

More than 70,000 of badgers are to be targeted in the next few months in the largest ever annual badger cull.  Our figures show that 102,334 badgers have already been slaughtered – roughly a quarter of Britain’s badgers.

The Government’s Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, (DEFRA) say this escalation in killing will ‘help to eradicate the disease sooner’ – an incredible falsehood, since, after SEVEN YEARS of culling, we have seen NO improvement in the incidence of bTB in Britain’s cattle, and the disease continues to spread.

This desperately failing Government policy aimed at combating bovine TB relies on two main elements – the killing of wildlife, accused of being a vector for the disease, and the killing of cows which fail the notorious Intradermal Tuberculin Skin Test.  This skin test is next to useless in identifying infected cows.  Its accuracy has recently been rated as no better than flipping a coin, and by the time it identifies ‘reactors’ in the herd, it’s way too late, because they have already spread the pathogen throughout the herd. Trying to eradicate a disease you cannot find is of course doomed to failure. British dairy farmers are losing their livelihood and their sanity, forced by DEFRA into a testing regime that has no logic and no chance of success.

Most ‘inconclusive’ reactors at a skin test will eventually prove to be infected.  And many of these undetected infected cows will also be infectious – spreading the disease within the farm.  Some cattle have passed more than 30 skin tests before being found to be infected.  This ‘latent infection’ explains why the DEFRA policy is fatally flawed.  Meanwhile, these undetected ‘clear’ cattle are traded and transported around the UK, spreading the disease ever more widely.

In 2020 Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire are to join the existing cull zones of Avon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Lincolnshire bringing the total number of ‘zones’ to 54.  The scale of the killing is breathtaking and, shockingly, utterly pointless.

Seven long years have cost over 100 millions pounds of tax payers’ money, and the slaughter of thousands of our precious native badgers – a protected species, and the disease still runs rampant.

The cull is a waste of money and time. It destroys cattle, badgers and farmers, and it simply does not work.  It MUST be stopped.

We want a Public Enquiry & Audit of the Badger Cull  costs to confirm if it is an effective tool in the Control of Bovine TB.

#WakeUpDefra

Brian May and Anne Brummer

The Save Me Trust

For more details on the pointless cull policy go to http://savemetrust.org/save-me-trust-our-work/badger