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Westcountry told that Minister due to decide on badger cull 'fairly soon

EDITORIAL  COMMENT:  "A cull of sick badgers"? So are they going to take a badger's temperature to see if it is sick before shooting it? Is the message to soften the public now that well really it's the "sick" badgers, so nothing to have concern about - cloaking the fact that both sick and healthy badgers would be culled.

There is also the thought - is the meSsage starting to be pedalled to the public that not only are badgers unlovely, and smelly - the badgers that we love ONLY because of Wind in the Willows / Rupert Bear cartoons - are ALL 'diseased'.

... DISEASED, unlovely, smelly things.  These labels will stick in the mind of Joe Public.

Look at the havoc they wreak... your family pet not safe from its lock-tight jaws... digging where they aren't wanted - ruining your beautiful lawn to get to insect larvae, feasting on your soft fruits and veggies, making latrines out of your rose beds, tunnelling under fences/buildings, unn't move out - - - and look at the dents they make in passing cars !!!  (I made that last one up.)   :O)
EDITOR 

THIS IS CORNWALL
Tuesday, July 05, 2011Western Morning News

Ministers will announce whether they will sanction a cull of sick badgers "fairly soon" after admitting a "do-nothing" strategy will cost the taxpayer £1 billion.

Westcountry MPs have been briefed that a long-awaited announcement on control measures to prevent the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle could be made this week.

Badger

It is thought giving the go-ahead to a targeted and licensed cull to curb bovine TB remains on a knife-edge, with ministers concerned a decision may not withstand a legal challenge from animal welfare groups.

Meanwhile, leading scientists have concluded that a proposed badger cull would reduce TB in cattle.

The scientists, led by the Environment Department's (Defra) chief scientist Professor Bob Watson and chief vet Nigel Gibbens, looked at a decade of research into culling badgers, which spread TB to cattle.

They said the evidence showed "co-ordinated, sustained and simultaneous" culling could be expected to lead to a net reduction of around 16 per cent in the number herds hit by bovine TB.

At a meeting held at Defra in April, the findings of which were published yesterday, the experts pointed to evidence from the randomised badger culling trial (RBCT) that culling reduced the number of newly affected herds within the cull area by 23 per cent compared to areas where no action took place.

In a House of Commons debate, Farming Minister Jim Paice suggested a decision is expected before Parliament breaks for summer recess on July 19.

The South West is among the areas hardest hit by the disease, with most of the 25,000 diseased cattle slaughtered last year taking place in the region. Compensation paid to farmers as a result cost the state £63 million.

Mr Paice told MPs: "We will make announcements fairly soon – before the House rises, we hope – on our proposals regarding badgers, and about wider cattle-to-cattle measures.

"I assure members that the status quo, do-nothing agenda is not acceptable.

"Calculations show that if we do nothing and things stay as they are, it will cost the taxpayer £1 billion over the next 10 years."

Last autumn ministers launched a consultation on how a cull could be implemented, alongside other measures such as vaccinating badgers.

A Defra spokesman said: "Bovine TB is a complex and sensitive issue and we will announce a comprehensive and balanced TB Eradication Programme for England by the end of July."

 

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