Sir, – It used to upset me to see the corpses of badgers killed by traffic – now it upsets me that I see so few of them!
At least the corpses assured me that we still had a population of badgers. Now I wonder how many are left. Or, have they all been killed as part of the campaign (so-called) to eradicate bovine TB? 90,000 badgers have been killed since the 1980s. Yet, when a culling takes place (a cruel procedure in itself) up to 90 per cent of the badgers killed prove to be free of TB. Something is terribly wrong here.
The Welsh authorities have decided to use a badger vaccine rather than culling. Are Welsh badgers so different to ours? Vaccine trials have taken place in Ireland, so why is it not used? Instead we prefer to wipe out whole populations of one of our largest and most wonderful mammals. Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, must introduce vaccination programmes quickly – if the Welsh can tackle the problem in a humane manner, then so can we.
Here, culling does not stop during the breeding season, so orphaned cubs, too young to look after themselves, are left, by the culling of their parents, slowly to starve to death underground. This is cruelty.
Surely a humane society can do better by this wonderful, secretive and mysterious gift of God to our country? – Yours, etc,