Plan to step up badger culling sparks new row between ministers and wildlife campaigners

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A new government plan to eradicate all badgers in certain areas has sparked a new row between authorities and wildlife conservationists.

The Badgers are accused of carrying bovine tuberculosis. (bTB), which requires dairy farmers to cull infected herds.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has reversed its earlier promises to end to the badger cull, which began in 2013.

Instead, as The Independent revealed last month, authorities are proposing to allow 100% of the population be killed in hot disease “clusters”. Until now, the goal has been 70 percent or more.

But animal welfare advocates are considering further legal action against the policy.

They say:< /p>The culling is politically motivated to suit certain factions, particularly farmers. There are no restrictions on the number of kill zones and the public will not know where they are. Relaxing controls will confuse law enforcement agencies and the public. The number of deaths could double in just over a decade to reach half a million. Defra is ignoring the science that has refuted the evidence officials rely on

Under a targeted cull – or 'epidemiological cull' – badgers could be wiped out in areas, mainly in the south-west of England, where bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is considered a particular threat.

The deadliest policy could begin next year. The government had previously indicated that the cull could end by 2026, before Thursday's U-turn.

Labor has promised to end the logging if it wins power in the general election.

Tom Langton, an environmentalist who has challenged the logging in court, said 100% culling had been attempted. in 2018 in Cumbria. “They culled 1,115 badgers – all of them – but then could not attribute the change in TB rates to the cull, as seven farms were very clearly becoming re-infected because of the failure of the testing regime,” a- he said.

He cited a who found no demonstrable benefit in lowering rates of tuberculosis in cattle.

"The new wave of killings prolonged, under what looks like a very simplified licensing system, could see the number of badgers culled rise from around 250,000 to date, to around 300,000 by 2030 and half a million by 2038. he declared.

"This would allow...