Hate mail over trial badger cull
Guardian - Tuesday June 22, 1999
by James Meikle Animal
activists were blamed by farmers yesterday for an upsurge in barn
fires and other damage as tensions rise in "badger
wars".
Officers of the National Farmers' Union claimed
members were being sent hate mail in attempts to stop them
cooperating with experimental culling programmes to slow the
spread of TB.
Brian Jennings, chairman of the union's animal
health and welfare committee, said: "Conservationists are
doing everything they can to foil the whole trial. Farmers are
being threatened, machinery, land and property are being
damaged."
The trials, designed to establish proof as to
whether badgers pass on TB to cattle and investigate other
possible factors such as husbandry and soil composition, started
last year although they may not be fully established until 2001.
Culling is not allowed outside specified zones, a
ban the NFU wants removed.
Pauline Kidner, a [former] trustee of the
National
Federation of Badger Groups, which is against the culls, said it
would frown on illegal behaviour. "We want to work with
farmers to find an answer," she said.
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