The Shameful Badger Cull

The groundswell of public opinion against the badger cull and its probable extension, gains momentum. Secretary of State for the Environment, Owen Paterson, wants to extend the cull because marksmen failed to kill the target proportion of badgers, falling well short of their target of killing 70% of badgers within the cull zones. Just recently we have learned that 708 badgers were killed in Gloucestershire out of an original target of 2,900 badgers. And, as we all know, according to Mr Paterson: "the badgers moved the goalposts". In making such a ludicrous statement DEFRA scored an embarrassing own goal. Had it not been for the emergency deployment of cages to trap and kill these poor animals when it became obvious that shooting wasn't working, then the kill figures would have been far lower. The failure of the pilot culls to reach their targets should not be used as an excuse to extend shooters' licences for three additional weeks.

There has been little if any monitoring of the shooting, whether or not badgers shot were killed cleanly. Any number of badgers could have been painfully wounded and fled underground to die. We will never know. Moreover, DEFRA did not include testing of badgers for bovine TB as part of the cull, even though testing of badger carcasses would have been easy enough to do and experts urged it.

And now Owen Paterson is considering gassing whole families of badgers in their setts as a possible future 'tool' for killing our remarkable animals. According to a new YouGov opinion poll 58% of the public would not support the government authorising badger gassing. Indeed, three years ago prime minister, David Cameron, famously called gassing "very cruel". Gassing is excluded as a method of killing species listed by the Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats (Bern convention) which includes badgers.

Mr Paterson's conduct throughout this hapless episode has resulted in him becoming little more than a laughing stock, amazing when our Government seeks to play a leading role in matters concerning biodiversity protection and wildlife crime.

It's time the Government got serious about protecting our wildlife and our farm animals and left our badgers alone.