Greens for Animal Protection (GAP), part of the Green Party of England and Wales, have called for an end to the government’s controversial programme of badger culls after the announcement that it will be extended into areas of South Devon, North Devon, North Cornwall, West Dorset, and South Herefordshire.
GAP spokesperson, Martin Layton said “Aside from the obvious cruelty of the act of slaughter, the most striking thing is the lack of information about its efficacy coming from either DEFRA or the Secretary of State for the Environment. If this slaughter was genuinely science led it would be subject to much more rigorous data collection and analysis than we have previously seen. The lack of scientific scrutiny highlights that these unnecessary killings are more political in nature than the government is willing to admit.”
“There should have been both pre and post cull testing, comparative analysis from cull free areas, and post mortems on as many slaughtered badgers as possible. It is worth noting that some experts suggest that the prevalence of infection in the badger population may be as little as 9%, and that none of the three post mortems carried out in the previous culls revealed any signs of infection.”
“If we are to eradicate the threat of bovine BT, we need to focus our attention on its main cause. That means examining practices within the dairy industry itself. We need better legislation to ensure that all farmers are taking effective biosecurity measures to limit the spread of disease,and we need to roll out a programme of vaccinations. Welsh farmers have already found these measures to be very effective; even in areas where infection rates were very high.”
“The lack of scrutiny around the current, preferred method underlines GAP’s longstanding calls for the creation of an Animal Protection Commission with the responsibility of assessing the impact of Government policy on other species.”
“Since Bovine TBis a problem of the practices of intensive animal agriculture, the best way to eradicate its threat is to reduce consumer demand for dairy products in favour of badger friendly alternatives such as soya or almond milk.”
Greens for Animal Protection work to promote the animal protection policies of the Green Party of England and Wales.
