Badger cull to go ahead

The appeal by the Badger Trust against an earlier ruling to uphold the Government?s proposals for two pilot badger culls this year has failed. Lord Justice Laws, Lord Justice Rimer and Lord Justice Sullivan unanimously rejected the appeal.

The cull in two pilot areas in West Gloucestershire and West Somerset is expected to go ahead in the next few weeks. David Wolfe QC, for the Badger Trust, claimed the two culls would involve killing an estimated 3,400 badgers in each area.

The licences for the culls, due to start later this autumn, would be issued under the 1992 Protection of Badgers Act, which consolidated provisions from the 1973 Badgers Act.

A spokesman for the Countryside Alliance said: ?This is a debate fraught with emotion on both sides, but the clear fact is that 18,213 cattle were slaughtered between January and June this year because of Bovine TB. This high figure shows the extent of the disease and the misery our farmers and their livestock are dealing with, and all efforts must be made to tackle the disease.?

The rest of this article appears in the 19th September issue of Shooting Times.

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The rest of this article appears in the 4th July issue of Shooting Times.