Further to your press notice No 41 dated 4 November 1998, and the Culling Trials, the Herefordshire Badger Group would like the following points to be noted against the trials:

—  Bern Convention: In carrying out this experiment we believe that the Government will contravene articles of the Bern Convention and we would like to express our concerns on this issue.

—  Husbandry: The NFBG have put forward a number of husbandry guidelines to reduce any badger/cattle contact. We feel that MAFF must ensure that these guidelines are adhered to on all farms along with MAFF guidelines.

—  Research: Money saved on not doing the culling trials must go into the research of a vaccine and the transmission and epidemiology of the disease and a more viable testing system on the cattle. A possibility of research is the influence of the weather conditions, which must be looked into.

—  Economics: Money saved on not doing the culling trials could be used for better and realistic compensation measures for farmers and research measures listed. The costs of the trials over a seven-year period will obviously escalate from that of year one to year seven.

—  Practicality: The trials are likely to be impractical and unworkable in the field, ie too much outside involvement will affect the experiment, as proven in the South West. Not all landowners will allow the experiment to be carried out on their land, giving inconclusive results.

—  Increased stress on livestock: As TB is a stress related disease, a drop of income per unit of livestock necessitates the farmer to increase the number of livestock he has. This aids overcrowding and along with the high level of intensive farming will create conditions of which favour an increase in occurrence of TB.

—  Passports: The system adopted by Ireland as per the BSE issue of having passports on the cattle should be implemented and more financial support for farmers with a closed farm should be given.

—  Validity of the Culling Trials: The Government claim the purpose of the experiment is to determine whether the culling of badgers is a viable means of controlling bovine TB. The Government must then be prepared to cull on an even larger scale, which gives question to wiping out substantial local populations of badgers (plus foxes, deer, rats, voles, moles, etc, etc). The Government has no intention of ever doing this, in which case the experiment is without any purpose whatsoever. Mr Jeff Rooker has already stated that if the experiment worked, the Government would not expand the proactive culling of badgers to other areas in Britain—even if the trial showed that the killing of the badgers reduced TB in cattle. If this is so, what valid reason is there for conducting the experiment at all. Also, if the trial goes into a "clean county" ie no TB in cattle or badgers, which it aims to, what is the purpose to this.

  With regard to the overall involvement of badgers in the TB issue, we feel that the amount of money and time spent destroying them is completely out of context in relation to their importance in causing the sudden increase in TB in cattle. Despite 20 years of killing badgers, there is still no concrete evidence on how important badgers are in aiding the spread and increase in occurrence of TB in cattle. They play a part certainly, but this may only be a minor part. What role do rats, deer, foxes, and farm cats play. Other and probably more important factors are how the cows are kept, the high stress levels they face, the lack of data on cattle movements and the warm winters we now have. A cow passes out 1,000's more infectious organisms than one poor badger.

  It appears that badgers are an easy target to attack and since MAFF need to be seen to be doing something, they waste millions of tax payers money on a fruitless culling strategy. Badgers have not increased greatly in numbers over the last two/three years, but TB has. This in itself indicates other more important factors than badgers are causing this.

11 January 1999