I hope you can find time to consider the following points.

  A characteristic of bovine TB is its unpredictable nature. There is no pattern to the outbreaks as MAFF admit, and thus no way of forecasting when the next will occur, or where, or why.

  How therefore can a relatively crude, hastily prepared single-focus culling experiment produce a valid cause-and-effect conclusion? Whatever the findings, whether they appear to favour or implicate the badger, they will surely be worthless unless they measure, monitor and evaluate all other possible contributory factors—among them farm husbandry, genetics (of both badgers and cattle), climate, drainage, other wildlife carriers and hosts, deliberate or accidental evasion of TB testing procedures, to name just a few.

  Surely the most damning comment yet on this cull is Professor Krebs' own admission to you that he has been asked to look only at the badger and not at other possible contributory factors. That's not science. That's blinkered prejudice perpetuated under the PR mantle of science.

  Please ask Professor Bourne whether he is (a) satisfied that such a selective, experiment can prove anything, (b) whether he can say with confidence that all the areas chosen for (triplet-zone) comparisons are mirror images in all significant respects and (c) whether all three types of zone will be subjected to continuous, objective policing and monitoring to ensure nothing is done to invalidate the findings.

15 February 1999