Britain's Agriculture Minister has urged livestock farmers not to undermine the government's anti-foot-and-mouth strategy by appealing against the culling of their animals.
Mr Nick Brown has written to all 85,000 livestock farmers in England to urge them that they should appeal against culling only in "very exceptional circumstances".
The Ministry of Agriculture is concerned that farmers who are told that their animals have to be culled, because their flocks or their neighbours are infected, have been exercising their right to appeal as a matter of routine. The high number of appeals is hampering the government's efforts to reach the target of slaughtering animals on neighbouring farms within 48 hours of the report of a new case.
In TV interviews yesterday, Mr Brown said the mass culling programme was, for the time being, the preferred policy for combating foot-and-mouth. It would be another week before they could be certain the outbreak had peaked, he said, and warned that the disease had a two- to three-week head start on those seeking to control it.
Ministry and army officials in Gloucestershire were, meanwhile, assessing the risk posed by thousands of slaughtered sheep carcasses after rainwater flushed blood from the infected animals on to a road between Bredon to Tewkesbury. The road was closed yesterday for disinfecting, which the ministry said was purely a precautionary measure.
In a similar incident, two slaughtered cows were catapulted from the back of a lorry on to the A40, near Gloucester, when the doors of the vehicle - en route to a landfill site - sprang open. The route was subsequently disinfected.
As concern rises over the impact of the crisis on the summer tourism market, the Culture Minister, Mr Chris Smith, revealed that tourism revenue has already fallen by 10 per cent compared to that of last year, and by up to 80 per cent in the worst-hit regions - Devon in the south-west and Cumbria in the north-west.