[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Today the result of the Badger Trust’s Judicial Review against the proposed badger cull in England was announced after a long and nerve-racking wait. Unfortunately, we’re sad and disappointed to say that it’s not good news for British Badgers.
The announcement today means that the legal bid to block badger culling in England has failed in the High Court, and the cull will go ahead as planned in pilot areas in West Gloucestershire and West Somerset.
Care for the Wild strongly believes that the plan is scientifically flawed, and that the cull will cause countless deaths of our badgers with little or no effect on TB. We feel that the government knows this, and has been pushed into a corner by farming unions and lobbyists, and is acting to save face.
We wanted to assure all of our supporters that we will continue to support the Badger Trust with their work, as well as continue on all of our work as part of the Badger Coalition to fight the cull, to raise public awareness and to stop this happening.
Next week, Care for the Wild, along with the RSPCA, Humane Society International and other key charities are meeting senior figures within the National Trust to urge them to ban the cull on their land. We’re also supporting some grass-roots events organised by the coalition in the pilot areas, and have some very high profile public awareness plans (we have to keep them a secret for now – sorry!) for later in the year to help really harness public support.
We urge you to support us and to speak out against the cull, get involved locally, make your voice heard, and to do to help us stop this cruel and pointless cull
Badger Culling – Science Ignored
Despite years of campaigning, badger culling seems to be an issue that keeps coming back to haunt us. The 10-year government-funded Randomised Badger Culling Trial concluded that “badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle tuberculosis control in Britain”. We thought this had finally consigned attempts to placate cattle farmers by exterminating badgers to history. How wrong we were.
Welsh Badgers Saved by Science
In January 2011, the Welsh Assembly announced its intention to start a “limited cull” of badgers in Pembrokeshire. Wales’s Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones claimed the decision was based on “scientific evidence” showing that culling would help reduce cattle TB. When challenged by Care for the Wild with the evidence from the government funded trials and other scientific papers clearly showing that culling isn’t effective, she failed to come up with any scientific justification for her decision. She simply stated in a letter that her intentions “have not changed”.
In response, Care for the Wild, along with our partners in the Save the Badger Alliance, launched a campaign to raise public awareness of the issue. One of our alliance partners, The Badger Trust, launched a legal challenge to the Welsh Assembly’s intentions. After much legal wrangling, the challenge was upheld on appeal, and the impending slaughter of badgers was stopped at the eleventh hour!
Among other things, the judgement recognised that the Welsh Assembly’s intentions did not satisfy the legal requirements of wildlife protection legislation. Most significantly, the Welsh Assembly had failed to demonstrate that the mass slaughter of a protected species would result in a sufficient benefit to farmers and to the taxpayer, in terms of the expected reduction in cattle TB that would result.
In March 2012, John Griffiths, the Welsh Assembly Minister for Environment and Economic Development, released a statement confirming that the Welsh Assembly has dropped plans to slaughter badgers in favour of a five-year vaccination scheme.
Current Situation: English Badgers Still Face Cull!
Astonishingly, at the end of 2011, the Coalition Government announced proposals to undertake badger cull trials in England. Farmers in the two pilot areas to be issued with licences for the free shooting of badgers, a method culling that has never been trialled before.
Care for the Wild believes this is the wrong move because:
There are serious welfare concerns associated with free-shooting, many animals will be left may suffer long painful death
There are no details as to how the cull will be monitored, as such, whole populations could be eradicated
Scientific evidence shows that slaughtering badgers does not effectively eradicate cattle TB
Care for the Wild is joining forces with the NGO community to oppose the pilot cull:
Care for the Wild is working directly with The League Against Cruel Sports, the RSPCA, Humane Society International and many more in a joint campaign aimed at preventing the badger cull trials. The campaign is centred around encouraging landowners within the pilot areas to sign a declaration opposing culling on their land, with the aim of ensuring that it is impossible to hold a cull on 70 per cent of the land within each pilot region, and raising public awareness about the reality of the issue.
Care for the Wild is backing the Humane Society International UK’s formal complaint to the Bern Convention against the Government decision to sanction pilot badger culls in West Somerset and West Gloucestershire. The complaint focuses in on three key aspects of the Bern Convention – that it lacks legitimate purpose, poses a significant threat to local badger populations and because alternative strategies for controlling TB in cattle and badgers have not been sufficiently explored.
Care for the Wild is extremely disappointed to here that the Badger Trust’s Judicial Review has failed in the High Court. We were all hoping that this would put a stop, or at least a delay, to the mass killing about to happen.
Sat Jul 14, 2012 4:51 pm
