UK’s badger cull set to widen – putting more creatures in the firing line
A total of 32,601 of the creatures were killed last year in 32 areas across England. Some 67,154 badgers have been killed in the mass culling scheme since 2013, mainly through shooting.
BEN GLAZE: ‘Thousands more badgers face being slaughtered as the Government is poised to widen its cull to 10 more areas. Oxfordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire could be included in the scheme for the first time as farmers bid to rid the countryside of TB in cattle. And new killing zones are set to be created in counties which already have licences to cull Brock…
Some 67,154 badgers have been killed in the mass culling scheme since 2013, mainly through shooting. A total of 32,601 of the creatures were killed last year in 32 areas across Dorset, Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cheshire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Staffordshire and Cumbria, as part of the Government-backed programme. Ten new licences could be granted when an announcement is made, expected within weeks.
Critics say the culling system is cruel and question the science behind the programme… Campaigners used freedom of information rules to uncover the latest list of areas being considered for licences to shoot the creatures. Natural England grants licences on behalf of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs…
Badger Trust chief executive Dominic Dyer said: “Within weeks of Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying outside Downing Street that animal welfare would be a key priority for his Government, Defra Secretary Theresa Villiers is about to sign off on the largest destruction of a protected species in living memory’. SOURCE…
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