Pauline Kidner, founder of Secret World Wildlife Rescue near Burnham-On-Sea, headed to London on Friday to join a protest outside DEFRA to highlight that 230,000 badgers have been killed so far in the fight against bovine TB, a cattle disease.
Pauline says: “Most people are unaware of thousands of badgers being killed, many of which will have been healthy.”
“The culling takes place over large areas of England. Out of this number only 900 have been given a post mortem and only 5% were found to be infected.”
“So far, we, the tax payers, have paid a further £100 million for this cull to take place. Labour had said in their mandate that the badger cull was ineffective.”
She adds: “Natural England’s own Director of Science says vaccination can be an effective alternative.”
”Yet DEFRA with Natural England (who issue the licences) are still planning to go ahead and kill a further 66,000 badgers.”
“Perhaps the most telling factor is that the reduction of Bovine TB in cattle in Wales is very similar to England – and not a single badger has been culled.”
