Tag Archives: badger cull

Badgers moving goalposts? It’s the government that’s playing football with badger cull policy

By Andy Boddington | Thu 10th October 2013 - 10:45 am

The badger cull has always been controversial. It has set wildlife groups and animal lovers against farmers. Many argue that it is being pursued against scientific opinion. And now the cull is struggling to meet its targets. The shooters in Somerset should have delivered 1,015 cadavers but so far they have piled up just 600.

What is going wrong? Defra chief Owen Paterson told the BBC: “the badgers have moved the goalposts.” Shame on badgers for not cooperating with a scheme to kill them!

This trial is not about increasing our scientific knowledge of bovine TB in the badger population. If that was the case, the government would be testing the carcases for TB. It is not. We will never know whether the dead brocks were disease carriers.

The trial is about the efficacy of shooting. And the result is that it is not efficacious.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged defra | 25 Comments

Opinion: Evidence-Based Policy and the Culling of Badgers

By Craig Brown | Tue 4th June 2013 - 5:47 pm

Tomorrow, our MPs will have the opportunity to vote in an Opposition Day debate on government plans for a badger cull. It is almost unheard of for the government to lose an opposition day motion, the last one being on settlement rights for veteran Gurkhas in 2009 – the first time since 1978. I have it on good authority that our parliamentary party has made up its mind that badgers are to be culled in the UK.

I would like to make a few things clear before I get into the meat of this post. Firstly, I’m not an ‘animal lover’ …

Posted in Op-eds | 14 Comments

Opinion: Badger cull delay is good news for Liberal Democrats

By Andrew Wigley | Wed 24th October 2012 - 6:55 pm

Owen Paterson’s announcement on the delay of the badger cull is good news for badgers and for the Liberal Democrats.

The ill-conceived policy may have had the backing of significant interest groups such as the NFU – Paterson repeatedly acknowledged their efforts in his speech – but it was always going to be difficult to present and ‘sell’ this policy to a nation with a strong affection to its environment and wildlife, especially after the debacle of the proposal to sell off the country’s forests.Combine public opinion with the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged david heath, defra, nfu and owen paterson | 18 Comments

Kill the cull – it’s bad for badgers, science and the Government

By Andrew Wigley | Wed 5th September 2012 - 10:23 am

A new term and the Government looks set to walk straight into a public relations disaster. In a bid to ‘manage’ the spread of bovine TB, Defra will commence a badger cull starting in two areas of the South West – West Somerset/Taunton Deane and in the Forest of Dean/Tewkesbury. It is not just the pictures of indiscriminate shooting and maiming of an icon of the British countryside which will be so damaging for the Government; it is the fact that the cull is based on flawed science. This is an ill-conceived policy.

The decision by Defra, one of the few …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged animal welfare, defra and RSPCA | 34 Comments