The beam from Lynn Sawyer’s head torch scans the dark trees on a Gloucestershire hillside before settling on a barely visible cage hidden in a thicket of brambles. “They’ve been trapping and shooting badgers here for six years and they are still doing it,” she says, trudging over a carpet of rotting leaves towards the […]
Tag: bovine tuberculosis
Huge increase in badger cull will see up to 42,000 shot
The controversial badger cull in England has been hugely expanded into 10 new areas, with up to 42,000 animals now due to be shot in an attempt to curb tuberculosis in cattle, up from 32,500 last year. The farming minister George Eustice claimed the cull is starting to show results in Gloucestershire and Somerset, with […]
POLL: Should Theresa May end the cruel and ineffective badger culls?
Two badgers who starred in a wildly popular BBC show could be slaughtered by marksmen currently carrying out a badger cull in England. Bumblebee and Gnat are orphaned badgers who were adopted by a rescue center in southwest England. They ultimately starred in “Hugh’s Wild West,” a BBC Two show watched by millions and presented […]
POLL: Should the badger cull in the UK be extended?
Tuesday was a sad day for our wild animals. The BBC reported that the badger cull will be extended into five new areas, although the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) would not confirm that the selections had been made. News that the already failed cull would be expanded is particularly disappointing to […]
POLL: Should the badger cull in the UK be stopped?
Police are investigating after a list apparently showing farmers who have signed up for the next phase of the badger cull was leaked to animal rights groups. One group that advocates direct action, Stop the Cull, has said it intends to publish the list of farmers in south Devon – one of the new areas […]
Testing cattle better than culling badgers to control bovine TB
Frequent testing of cattle is a far more effective way of controlling bovine tuberculosis (TB) than culling badgers, research suggests. A new computer simulation showed that vigilant cattle testing can eventually eradicate the disease whether or not badgers are culled. Badger culling alone did not lead to TB eradication, according to the model. The research […]
Culls risk illegally exterminating badgers, animal expert warns
England’s highly controversial badger culls risk illegally wiping out every badger in the cull zones because the animals’ numbers are so poorly known, according to one of the UK’s leading badger experts. The culls, intended to curb tuberculosis in cattle, are authorised to begin on 1 June but could prove unworkable because of the uncertainty […]