England's controversial trial badger culls have failed round two. Shooters in Gloucestershire have killed fewer than half the required number of badgers. (253 kills out of 615 targeted). The culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset were due to end Monday. Killing too few badgers actually causes TB in cattle to increase due to the scattering of badger populations by a cull according to an
authoritative ten year study in which 11,000 badgers were killed. The first round last year was declared a failure after an independent review panel determined the cull was neither effective or humane.
{21.10.14, English Badger Cull a Balls Up} As a result of the damning report
the government dropped plans for a roll out of a national badger cull. However, in this second round of trials the government decided to remove the independent expert panel, and badger advocates
lost a legal battle to declare the cull illegal without a review panel in place.
Professor Rosie Woodroffe
[photos: Guardian], an expert that worked on the ten-year trial said the cull "targets are all rubbish because they are based on rubbish data". Animal welfare advocates said the kill targets are based on "political convenience, not science." The Labor Party announced it will end the culls if elected to power in the next general elections. Polls indicate 61% of the English oppose the slaughter. More than thirty animal disease experts have signed a letter to the
Observer describing the culls a "costly distraction" that makes the problem of tuberculosis in cattle worse. England has the highest rate of bovine TB infection in Europe. Ministers under pressure from agricultural interests are supposed to decide whether to continue based on the results of the latest trials. Lord John Krebs who lead the landmark study in 2007 called the culls, "mindless". But that condition never stopped a politician.
