Wildlife Trust slam badger culling plan

Buy photos » Badger watch - Coun Noreen New and Warwickshire Wildlife Trust chief Stephen Trotter. 07.012.022.rug.jg2

WARWICKSHIRE Wildlife Trust is calling for badger vaccinations rather than culling in a bid to tackle the spread of the Bovine TB disease.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman recently announced plans to proceed with controversial badger culls, in an attempt to control Bovine TB in England and Wales, but WWT is calling for the government to put vaccination at the centre of its efforts to control the disease to avoid what they call the “unnecessary slaughter of one of our most popular native wildlife species.”

WWT chief executive Stephen Trotter said: “The trust doesn’t want to see either cattle or badgers killed because of TB.

“The only long-term solution is to vaccinate badgers and cattle.

“While we await the development of a vaccine for cattle, we would like to start a programme of vaccinating badgers to help ease the problem locally.”

In Rugby, borough councillor Noreen New has called on the authority to allow the wildlife trust to carry out vaccinations on badgers living on council-owned land in the borough.

Coun New said: “This announcement by the Environment Secretary could see thousands of healthy badgers killed unnecessarily, which would mean that badger populations could decline by more than 70 per cent.

“Scientific studies show that culling would be an expensive and ineffective way of controlling the disease and could actually make things worse, as any disruption to their territory increases the risk of badgers roaming and mixing with other social groups.”

Visit www.wkwt.org.uk to support the appeal.