Coalition of Badger Action Groups
PO Box 129, PLYMOUTH, Devon, PL1 1RY
Tel: 07779 442395
E-mail  against@badger-killers.co.uk
Web: www.badger-killers.co.uk

PRESS RELEASE

Date: 20 June 2002
BADGER KILLING IS EXPECTED TO START NEXT WEEK ON EXMOOR NATIONAL PARK AND NORTH WILTSHIRE

DEFRA are laying traps in the Proactive killing area of 'Tarr Steps on Exmoor. The killing area covers a 100sq km area taking in Tarrs Steps, Winsford, Exford, Liscombe, East and West Anstey, North and West of Dulverton and Hawkridge areas (O/S Explorer maps OL9 and 114). Also DEFRA are laying traps in the North Wiltshire Proactive killing area around Devizes, the killing area takes in Bromham, Bulkington, Erlestoke, Keevil, Marston, Pottern, Poulshot, Roundway, Rowde, Seend, Worton and including just South and West of Devizes (O/S Explorer maps 130, 156 and 157). For more information about the North Wiltshire killing area phone:07796 515311

"Concerned individuals will be monitoring the killing area and are insensed by the total watse of money and life, the badger killing will not help solve the bovine TB issue. Over twenty-seven years of scapegoating and killing badgers has not resolved the bovine TB 'problem'" says Debbie Vincent from the Coalition of Badger Action Groups.

TB statistics confirm that cattle are to blame - *So why carry on wasting £35,000 to kill each 'infected' badger?
Publication of TB statistics on 29 April 2002 confirms that cattle to cattle transmission is the major cause of the increase in bovine tuberculosis in cattle. Even Professor John Bourne, who co-ordinates the killing 'experiment', has admitted that cattle to cattle infection has been underplayed. "I think it is true to say the badger has been made a scapegoat," he admitted to the BBC, in May 1999.

Also, the vast majority of badgers are unlikely to be infected (DEFRA’s own figures show that 80% of 21,545 badgers killed and examined post mortem in previous TB badger removals were not infected with TB). "So in real terms the 20% of 'infected' badgers cost £35,000 to kill each infected badger!" says Debbie Vincent, "the badger cull must end to stop this political whitewash that has nothing to do bovine TB. Have the government not learnt the lessons from the 1960 and 1970's? Thirty years and millions of pounds have been wasted, and to what end? Nothig! Why are our taxes being wasted in such an appalling way?"

She continues "We challenge DEFRA's 'Pet' sciencetis to a public debate into the ineffective badger cull!"

Bovine TB has gone unchecked during the FMD outbreak, DEFRA are greatly behind on their TB testing program which is what is causing the problem.

"Undetected and low levels of infection [1] in cattle herds were dramatically amplified whilst cattle were cooped up during the foot and mouth outbreak", said Dr Elaine King, chief executive of the National Federation of Badger Groups.

"Now that TB testing has resumed in earnest, the increased levels of infection are more easily detected. Badgers are clearly not to blame: infection has sprung up in previously unaffected sites, such as Cumbria and Scotland [2]. Badgers have not migrated from the west-country to the north, but cattle were moved despite the enormous risk of TB outbreaks." she says.

Farmers and DEFRA need to come to their senses and recognise that only tougher cattle movement restrictions and better cattle testing will prevent a further escalation in the outbreaks.

"The badger slaughter policy has failed miserably, it is bad science to scapegoat the badger, its farming practices that have to change" said Debbie Vincent. "Bovine TB in cattle has spread to South Wales and the Midlands, Cumbria and even Scotland - where next? Often, bovine TB has jumped miles to unaffected areas. Badgers do not travel these great distances. But cattle do, especially since B.S.E. and the latest farming disease outbreak of Foot and Mouth last year."

"An example of that scapegoating is that farmers and farming unions have been blaming badgers for the decline in skylarks for years" says Debbie Vincent. But in a briefing paper to the Government TB Forum in May 2002, Dr Chris Cheeseman from DEFRA's Ecological Research Unit, confirmed that cattle are responsible for 60 per cent of nest destructions. In contrast, badgers and foxes are responsible for just 15 per cent of destructions. Most significantly, Dr Cheeseman confirmed that intensive grazing regimes increase the likelihood of nest destruction.

Dr Cheeseman also rebuked farming unions for claiming that badger numbers are “exploding”. He also confirmed that no evidence has been found to link an increase in the badger population to the increase in bovine TB in cattle.

Contact details:

Debbie Vincent, Coalition of Badger Action Groups, PO Box 129, PLYMOUTH, Devon, PL1 1RY. Tel: 07779 442395 E-mail  against@badger-killers.co.uk: www.badger-killers.co.uk

Devon and Somerset local contact: Liz 01803 860050

Wiltshire Badger Action Group: 07796 515311

Dr Elaine King, National Federation of Badger Groups (NFBG): Tel: 020 7498 3220 or 07976 153389 NFBG web site: www.nfbg.org.uk




Notes to editors:

[1] An epidemiological investigation into bovine tuberculosis. Third Report of the Independent Scientific Group on cattle TB. July 2001:

"and the persistence of TB in cattle in some regions has been interpreted as evidence that there must be a continuing source of infection from wildlife, rather than due to inadequacies of the cattle testing system and movement control, or both. We have questioned this view as part of our overall consideration of the persistent TB problem. This has led us to consider the possibility that irrespective of its original source, infection persists in cattle herds despite regular tuberculin testing, thereby providing opportunities for amplification within herds and for cattle-to-cattle spread."

[2] Progress report on the government?s strategy to tackle TB in cattle: January 2002, TB Forum paper 61:

"7. 2 reactor cattle and 2 IRs [inconclusive reactors] have been found when post FMD restocked herds, 119 animals in all, at Englishtown in Cumbria, and Staffler in Scotland, were given routine post restocking 3 month tests on 15 January 2002 and one was from the Launceston area of Cornwall. Cattle movement data suggest that this animal moved through a number of herds in the Launceston area in a fairly short amount of time."