The Quakers of the Huddersfield Meeting of the Society of Friends have asked me to express their concern about the MAFF's intended "culling" of badgers.

  We are distressed that an attempt should be made at extermination over such large areas, and with so much cruelty—it is admitted that at least two thousand cubs will starve to death, and the sufferings of dislocated family groups will be very great. We do not believe that it will be possible to eliminate all the badgers—incomers will fill their places. Further, the proposed experiment with "leg cuffs", which are merely a specific form of spring snare, can only be inhumane, for the anguish they cause has been well known for many years.

  In this country the badger, is legally protected and snaring them is prohibited. The Government has been approached by Michael Meacher, the Environment Secretary, and repeatedly by the National Federation of Badger Groups. The action proposed is in breach of the law and contravenes Sections 7, 8 and 9 of the Berne Convention, whose Commitee in Strasbourg has denounced the intervention, without changing Government's attitude.

  We feel that it would be more appropriate to make a thorough investigation of vaccination and changes in husbandry, which do not appear to have been very vigorously pursued. We hope that your Committee will give due weight to these views which seem to very widely held.

1 January 1999