Badger killing and bovine TB

Saturday 25 November 2000
Letter from Baroness Hayman - Animal Health Minister

Sir, Simon Barnes’s article “Why must badgers die?” (Times2, November 21) does scant justice to a complex and controversial animal health problem, namely the rise in bovine tuberculosis in Britain’s cattle herd.

To suggest that the Government is carrying out its scientific field trial of badger culling because it is “keeping the farmers quiet” is a travesty of the Government’s wide-ranging TB strategy, which is firmly based on independent scientific advice.

The report of the Krebs committee - set up under the previous Government - concluded in December 1997 that there was “compelling evidence” that badgers were a significant source of TB in cattle. However, it went on to say that the extent of the contribution made by badgers - as opposed to other factors - could not be quantified, and that the effectiveness of culling badgers to control cattle TB had not been scientifically assessed. It recommended a carefully designed field trial to settle these complex questions. That is exactly what the Government is carrying out and it has halted badger culling elsewhere while the trial is in progress.

It is not correct to say that the Government is “breaking its own laws” in carrying out the badger culling field trial. The legality of the field trial has been upheld both in the domestic courts and at the Bern Convention for the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. It has been carefully designed to take the smallest number of badgers necessary to reach firm scientific conclusions - about 12,500 over five years out of the UK badger population of 300,000. It has been subjected to independent external welfare audit and been shown to meet high welfare standards.

The Government’s overriding objective is to identify science-based TB control policies which will allow healthy cattle and badgers to coexist in our countryside.

Yours faithfully,
HELENE HAYMAN,
Ministry of Agriculture
Fisheries and Food,
Nobel House,
17 Smith Square, SW1P 3JR
November 23.

For more information, please click this link:

• http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,59-41572-realmedia,00.html