By way of introduction we have had seven dairy cows and heifers who reacted and were consequently slaughtered in 1998. Three had visible lesions.

  The badger population on the farm has increased over the last few years. The MAFF head vet while visiting the farm found an obviously sick badger which was slaughtered and the post mortem found it to be dying of TB.

  The Krebs experiment appears to have two drawbacks.

  1.  It will take at least five years and probably seven, with no certainty that anything positive be proved. Meanwhile many cattle will be slaughtered at huge financial and mental cost.

  2.  If any landowners in the designated area refuses permission for the cull to take place on their land, the ministry have no power to enter the land and proceed with the project. It seems likely therefore that the experiment will not produce a valid result.

  While no reasonable person condones badger baiting and the law clearly and rightly makes this an offence, farmers have always had to deal with animals that become pests. Slugs, rats, rabbits, grey squirrels, foxes, deer, etc in reasonable numbers do no harm. But when their numbers increase they do serious damage to crops, trees and livestock and have to be controlled. From time immemorial there used to be a stable population of badgers on the farm who lived peacefully and did no harm. It is only recently that numbers have increased and apparently with it the problem.

  The probable effects of the increased numbers are (1) that food is insufficient to keep the population in good health so their resistance to the disease is impaired and (2) the increased density and pressure on the habitat causes cross infection among the badger population. Farmers have always been used to dealing with these situations in as humane a way as possible and advice from MAFF is available. The extravagant protectionist laws that have been passed using badger baiting as their rationale, which is a completely separate issue, have caused huge costs and extra bureaucracy. A simple change in the law would solve the problem and there would still be plenty of badgers to satisfy all of us who like nature and the diversity of wild life in the countryside.

1 December 1998