Badger Trust condemns ‘largest destruction of a protected species in living memory’ as government admits failings and focuses on vaccination
Published onSat 28 Mar 2020 16.05 GMT
More than 35,000 badgers were killed during last year’s cull, according to long overdue figures slipped out by the government on Friday at the height of the coronavirus crisis.
The total has dismayed animal rights campaigners, who claim that for the first time since the cull was introduced in 2013, more badgers were shot last year than cattle were slaughtered because they have bovine-TB.
Dominic Dyer, the chief executive of the Badger Trust, said: “The government licensed the killing of 35,034 badgers in 2019 in 40 culling zones stretching from Cornwall to Cumbria in the largest destruction of a protected species in living memory.”
More than 70% of the badgers (24,645) were killed as a result of controlled shooting.
“This is a method of killing which is condemned by the British Veterinary Association as inhumane as it can result in badgers taking more than five minutes to die from multiple bullet wounds, blood loss and organ failure,” Dyer said.
Only 149 (0.6%) of the total 35,034 badgers killed were monitored to establish that they were dispatched humanely.
The total number of badgers killed since the cull policy started now stands at 102,349. It has been estimated that the cull has cost the taxpayer more than £60m.
The figures were supposed to have been published months ago but were delayed as the efficacy of the government’s policy came in for criticism.
“Badgers are now being slaughtered at such a rate across England that they could face local extinction in areas of the country which they have inhabited since the Ice Age,” Dyer said.
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