Badger cull damaged by protesters' disruption and
farmers' impatience
Guardian - Saturday July 15, 2000
by James Meikle
The
government's attempts to establish whether badgers are the prime
cause for the rising incidence of TB in cattle are under
increasing threat from activists seeking to wreck a limited cull
of the wildlife.
Meanwhile farmers angry at what
they see as government inaction to stop the spread of the disease
outside the culling zones in the west country are boasting that
they are shooting animals illegally.
Evidence from the badger cull will
take at least another two years to collect. It could be 2004
before ministers decide a national policy for eradicating bovine
TB, which is also prevalent in the sharply rising badger
population.
But activists are destroying traps,
picketing farms, damaging Ministry of Agriculture property and
allegedly threatening officials, farmers and landowners in
attempts to halt the experiment. Police wildlife officers say they
have been taken aback by the number of farmers who claim they have
broken British and international law by killing badgers, knowing
they could not be held to account because of a lack of independent
evidence......
The cull is costing £7m a year,
with other research costing £4m, cattle TB testing £12m and
compensation for the well over 6,000 cattle that have had to be
destroyed another £5m. She denied any suggestion the government
was neglecting other ways of combating TB, including vaccines for
cattle or wildlife, better management of farms, and improved
cattle breeding. There were likely to be several causes for the
big increase in bovine TB......
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10
Dec 2000
