Campaign group joins bid to halt badger cull

A CAMPAIGN group which helped force the government into an embarrassing U-turn over plans to sell off forests has set its sights on stopping a cull of badgers.

The government announced last month it would press ahead with issuing licences to shoot the wild animals in a bid to eradicate bovine tuberculosis (BTb) threatening cattle and costing farmers millions of pounds in lost sales.

The move has attracted criticism from animal rights groups and others after it was reported government advisers had warned it may not be effective.

Campaign group 38 Degrees, which persuaded 532,000 people to sign its Save Our Forests petition to derail the coalition's woodland sell-off earlier this year, has joined those fighting the cull. The group is not opposing a cull outright but questions whether it is the most effective way of tackling the spread of BTb, with 87 per cent of members polled saying they should oppose it. More than 13,000 people have signed a petition in the last few days.

Environment secretary Caroline Spelman, who shouldered much of the blame for the U-turn over forests, launched the badger cull on 19 July, saying BTb would cost farmers in England alone 1 billion over the next decade if action was not taken.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) claims nearly 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in England in 2010 because of the disease, costing the country 90 million.

Farmers in the west and south-west of England were affected the most, with Defra claiming 23 per cent of cattle farms in these areas were unable to move stock at some point in 2010 because of the disease.