Kendall urges farmers to ‘make the most’ of badger cull opportunity
6 December 2013 | By Alistair Driver
NFU president Peter Kendall has urged farmers in TB hotspot to ‘make the most’ of the opportunity to control bovine TB in wildlife, if the badger cull is rolled out more widely next year.
Defra Secretary Owen Paterson is set to announce early next year whether the policy can be extended to up 10 new areas in 2014.
The Gloucestershire cull was halted on Saturday, five-and-a-half weeks into what was intended to be an eight-week extension to the original six-week pilot.
Over the 11 and-a-half weeks, a total of 921 badgers were removed, Mr Paterson announced on Monday.
This represented a reduction of 39 per cent in the estimated badger population before culling began, well short of the original target of 70 per cent, despite the extension.
Mr Kendall said the cull company decided to call a halt to proceedings because, while badgers continued to be removed on a daily basis, ‘the numbers seen have been steadily reducing as the season has progressed’.
Updated estimates
He pointed out that the estimates of badger numbers were likely to be updated yet again – upwards or downwards – as further analysis is done in the cull areas. Contractors in Somerset, where officially 65 per cent of badgers were removed over nine weeks of culling, and Gloucestershire felt the proportion removed may have been higher than the official figures showed, he said.
“The view on the ground is we got a very high percentage in Somerset,” he said.
He added that progress in Gloucestershire had been hampered protestors who often made it impossible for the contractors to operate.
