CAMPAIGN UPDATE
NASC CONDEMNS DEFRA SNARING EXPERIMENT
NASC condemns DEFRA for snaring experiments for use in proposed badger cull.
Badger are being snared in captivity to test whether snaring can be used in the proposed badger cull in TB hotspots. We fear that a closed environment where a badger is not desperate to return to its sett will give false results to the ferocious struggle that badgers will put up in a snare. As a result, a huge petition collected by the NASC and Badger Trust members opposing snaring is likely to be presented early in order to put pressure on the government not to use snares:
Interestingly, the press office at DEFRA claim the snare trials are of a completely new design, aimed to go "around the body only". If the trials work on captive badgers, then "field trials" would be carried out. DEFRA is extremely cagey about where the trials are taking place for fear of intimidation by those seeking to protect the badgers.
Pictures: Huge disturbance to the ground put up by a badger in a snare at Linkenholt, North hampshire, 2005. Photo Credit: League Against Cruel Sports.
WARNING OVER BADGER CULL
Pro-badger groups have told Ministers that allowing the animals to be killed to control TB would be a policy error of "catastrophic" proportions.The warning has come from the Badger Trust in the wake of an announcement by Lord Rooker that farmers may be allowed to apply for licences to cull the animals from May.
The operations will be organised by farmers themselves and will not require any new legislation.
One group of South West farmers is already planning to apply for a licence and take out diseased setts, in co-operation with State Veterinary Service officials.
Their plan is to leave the setts empty to attract weaker, diseased badgers which may have been driven out of other social groups, to repeat the eradication and thus free an entire area of disease over the space of two years.
The Government's concession follows months of pressure by farming organisations which have accused Defra of turning its so-called partnership with farmers into a wholly one-sided affair.
New TB controls on six-week cattle have been imposed without any attempt to implement the remainder of the agreed package of measures to eradicate the disease reservoir in wildlife.
Farmers' leaders are warning badger culling must be carried out secretly to avoid attacks by animal rights extremists, responsible for destroying dozens of traps during the Krebs trials.
But Badger Trust spokesman Trevor Lawson warned any such decision by the Government would be the start of a hugely expensive conflict with the natural world.
He said the policy would be particularly objectionable, given that the Government's own TB division admitted that bovine TB was spreading because current cattle tests were not sensitive enough to prevent transmission through cattle movements.
"Since the science shows that cattle give bovine TB to badgers, killing badgers would be tantamount to persecuting the victim to satisfy a minority of strident voices in the farming and veterinary lobbies," he said.
"A badger-killing policy will fail for a multitude of scientific, economic and practical reasons.
"Since eight out of 10 slaughtered badgers will be perfectly healthy, it will destroy any last vestiges of support that the public might have for farmers. And it will set farmer against farmer, since anyone exterminating badgers on his land will be putting his neighbour's cattle at risk."
But a spokesman for the first group planning a cull in Devon said healthy badgers would not be targeted.
"This is not about taking out every badger, it is about identifying diseased setts and eliminating them," he said.
"There are a number of ways of identifying these setts, and this operation will be carried out carefully and scientifically.
"We believe we have demonstrated that it can work, which is why it appears the Government is about to come round to our way of thinking."
Posted: 6.03.2007
