The Gloucestershire badger cull has been called off early as shooters
failed to achieve even a reduced number of kills. An eight week extension was granted by Natural England, but the number of kills was so low that the licensing organization decided to abandon the cull as of noon Friday. The trials in both Somerset and Gloucestershire realistically should be
considered failures, but failure never stopped an ideologically committed bureaucracy. To be effective in controlling bovine TB scientists think a kill rate of 70% is necessary. The total number of badgers killed did not get close to that mark. The Gloucestershire cull was called off when it failed to reach 58% of the estimated population. Somerset also failed to reach its target after a three week extension. An official from the Humane Society International called the cull effort a "fiasco". Activists want the government to adopt a vaccination policy without the useless spilling of
blood. Apparently, kill targets were set so high they actually exceed the entire badger population in the kill zone; embarrassingly, the environment minister accused the badger of "
moving the goal posts". If they only had guns to defend themselves too!
