Date 24th March 2011
The Badger Trust is deeply disappointed that The Badger (Control Area) (Wales) Order 2011 is not to be annulled. A motion tabled by four Members of the Welsh Assembly Government failed yesterday (March 23).
The Trust is taking legal advice about the measures proposed and the reasons given for the decision, and says this expensive and futile proposal is clearly unnecessary.
The incidence of bovine tuberculosis on Welsh beef and dairy farms has been falling steadily for two years, particularly in Dyfed which includes the Intensive Action Area where culling is proposed. Furthermore, if badger killing had already been allowed those arguing for it would have been claiming that culling rather than the range of effective cattle-based measures now in force had produced these welcome improvements. The cattle toll has fallen by almost half (45 percent) in Dyfed over the last two years without any culling: down from 8,361 animals in 2008 to 4,353 last year.
Dr Brian May, the musician and astrophysicist, has told Assembly Members: “Everybody, and I mean everybody, who has studied the evidence, knows that it cannot work, and that the only true way to eliminate this disease is through better screening and movement controls in cattle farming. For the past two years, the incidence of bTB has fallen dramatically, following the tightening of cattle-based controls within the farming industry”.
Despite this blatantly political decision the science remains the same as it has been since before the last hugely successful eradication programme after World War II. In 2007 Defra’s Independent Scientific Group overseeing the £50 million Randomised Badger Culling Trial of the last decade, said: “Culling of badgers can make no meaningful contribution to the control of bovine TB in cattle” and that cattle measures alone would be sufficient.
The motion to annul had been tabled by Peter Black (South Wales West), Lorraine Barrett (Cardiff South and Penarth), Irene James (Islwyn), and Jenny Randerson (Cardiff Central).