Opponents of cull say cost of £1,000 per animal
killed means it is wasteful as well as cruel
Tue 1 May 2018 14.32 BSTLast
modified on Tue 1 May 2018 22.00 BST
The cost of policing the controversial badger
cull in just one of the 21 zones last autumn approached the £1m mark – the
equivalent of more than £1,000 for every animal killed there.
Objectors to the cull described the bill for
Cheshire as a horrendous waste of public money and called for the policy to be
scrapped on economic as well as animal cruelty grounds.
The zone in
Cheshire was one of 11 new areas where the cull, which is designed to
help eradicate bovine TB in cattle, took place
in the autumn of 2017.
In January, a member of the
organisation Wounded
Badger Patrol asked Cheshirepolice under freedom of information
legislation how much the operation for policing the cull – codenamed
Operation Aviator – cost.
At first the force said it did not hold the
information but a member of the patrol, appealed, writing: “Having been out in
the cull zone five nights a week and the police liaison for one of the groups,
I know how many police officers were taken off normal duties ... as well as
seeing the number of police in cars/riot vans out each night of the cull
period.”
Last month the force apologised for not
providing the information and revealed it had charged the Home Office £831,000
for the badger cull operation.
According to government figures, 736 badgers
were killed in the Cheshire zone in 2017 over 48 days. In all,
there were 21 cull zones in England in 2017 involving seven police force areas.
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