Website Content

Jump to footer

Welsh badger cull back under legal microscope

WELSH DAILY POST
19 April 2011 by Andrew Forgrave, DPW West

A GOVERNMENT-sanctioned cull of badgers planned in west Wales is set to be challenged in the courts for a second time. The Badger Trust has announced it is to start legal proceedings to block the Welsh Assembly Government.

The trust’s chairman, David Williams, said that it was looking at a “return to law” over the administration’s bovine TB eradication legislation.

He said the trust, with the support of landowner members, had sent a “letter before action” with a view to commencing legal proceedings in the High Court if the WAG refused to revoke its Order to destroy badgers.

“It is our duty to pursue all legal means to protect the badger,” said Mr Williams. “The members of Britain’s badger groups and our loyal supporters look to us to secure the welfare of the badger in line with our objectives as a charity acting in the public interest.”

The Badger Control Order 2011 came into effect in the final days of the previous Assembly administration.

An earlier attempt to instigate a trial cull, by rural affairs minister Elin Jones, was stopped last year by the Court of Appeal.

This new challenge is likely to focus less on the legal technicalities than the civil rights of landowners in the Pembrokeshire cull area. As a result a greater burden of costs will be borne by Pembrokeshire Against the Cull (PAC), which has launched a fighting fund.

PAC chair Celia Thomas said: “So far the WAG appears to have ignored the concerns about human rights and public safety, and has offered no justification for taking such disproportionate powers and actions.”

Bovine TB – and the planned badger cull – is threatening to be a divisive issue in next month’s Assembly elections.

Wildlife groups are targeting pro-cull candidates in the belief that the issue will be revisited in the election’s aftermath.

A protest involving several organisations is being held in Aberystwyth on March 30 [ERROR - this should read 30 April] with the aim of unseating Ceredigion’s Elin Jones.

Among those present will be Betty Lee from Clwyd Badger Group and Judi Hewitt from Wales Against Animal Cruelty.

They have carried their campaign to the streets of North Wales, focusing on pro-cull candidates for the Aberconwy and Clwyd West seats.

Mrs Hewitt said: “Our hope is that people who would not normally vote will now do so for their anti-cull candidate because this is the only way to stop the unnecessary cruelty.”

Mrs Lee added: “If we get the same pro-cull AMs back into office, then the future looks bleak for our badgers.”

Wildlife groups want more time to be given to current cattle control measures. Over the last two years numbers of cattle slaughtered has fallen and campaigners believe a badger cull would make matters worse.

However a new study has supported the WAG’s strategy: it showed that badger culling continues to result in big falls in cattle TB cases up to four-and-a-half years after the end of a cull.

According to the study, published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, the results could be even more positive in the planned West Wales cull area.

The figures show a 31.5% reduction in TB herd incidences in English culling areas over a 54-month period after badger culls ended – and a reduction of 37% in the six months to March 2011.

Past News

brianmay.com
Bookmark and Share