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Press Release: Badger Trust Tackles DEFRA over "leak"

Friday 3rd December 2010
The Badger Trust is making urgent enquiries about how Farmers’ Weekly was able to use confidential Defra figures about the department’s badger killing consultation.

A leading article in the paper said people who were against killing badgers as part of a programme to eradicate tuberculosis in cattle were “swamping the consultation team with piles of well-argued letters demanding no cull of infected badgers”.

David Williams, chairman of the Badger Trust, said: “Delighted as we would be if this were true we are asking for formal assurances at the highest level that there has been no collusion between elements in Defra and agricultural industry interests. Such a leak would be improper not only before the results of the consultation were published early next year but also because it has not even closed yet. An important trade paper is now able to capitalise on this confidential information in support of the opinions of the National Farmers’ Union”.

The editorial in Farmers’ Weekly (Thursday December 2) [1] said: “Don't let the well-organised anti-cull lobby dominate because, at the moment, that is exactly what is happening. The badger groups have used the democratic process and the media effectively to get people from all walks of life fired up on this issue. They are swamping the consultation team with piles of well-argued letters demanding no cull of infected badgers”. It added that some farming families were “understandably” reluctant to respond because they were worried that a risk of identification might lead to trouble with animal welfare protesters.

Mr Williams said: “The Badger Trust uses only scientific evidence, not political assertion. We always urge people to use only peaceful and legal means to ensure a fair and proportionate outcome for the badger, and to base their arguments on sound, published science”.

The three-month consultation period will close next week [December 8] following the publication on September 15 of Defra’s briefing document and its seven appendices containing a mass of cross-references. In it, Defra attempts to lead respondents to “agree” to one of six options, but the briefing notes contain serious contradictions and omissions. The Trust says the document unfairly points respondents towards Defra’s favoured choice, the option: “Our preferred approach is option 6: to issue licences under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 for industry to cull badgers, subject to a specific set of licence criteria” and apply for licences to vaccinate badgers [2]. The second of eight questions in the consultation asks simply: “Do you agree with the preferred option?”

The options given do not reflect the many important qualifications in the consultation document itself, let alone others that could be made, and Defra’s list of organizations invited to comment is heavily biased towards farming interests.

Farmers’ Weekly also wrote: “But licences to cull infected badgers humanely and safely will be essential too if we are to stop the reservoir of infection in wildlife”. The role if any of a reservoir in wildlife is not understood, it is not possible to distinguish infected badgers from others in the field, and shooting free-running nocturnal animals as proposed is hardly humane and supremely dangerous. This is particularly so at night and in woodland or near hedgerows.

Finally, if a “cull” comes to pass it will be mostly at the farmers’ expense for, at best, little gain if any, and that only perhaps, or sometime, or never. The farmers will have only themselves and their representatives to blame.

NOTES
[1] Farmers’ Weekly http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2010/12/02/124579/Act-now-make-your-voice-count-on-TB.htm
[2] Para 138, consultation document, http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/tb-control-measures/100915-tb-control-measures-condoc.pdf

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