The second year of badger culling in Somerset and Gloucestershire officially ended at noon on Monday.

It is understood that cull companies will not be seeking extensions to the six week culls, which were granted in both cull zones last year, when markspeople failed to meet their targets. The official numbers of badgers killed during this year's culls will not be announced until the figures have been audited.

The culls are intended to test the effectiveness and humaneness of culling, and whether shooting poses a risk to public safety. Bovine TB has not been monitored in either the cattle or badger populations of the two pilot zones as part of the culls.  

The results of a ComRes poll, commissioned by the Badger Trust and released to coincide with the end of culling this year, show that nine out of ten people (89%) who hold an opinion on the matter want the UK government to stop culling badgers and adopt the Welsh model of bovine TB control; a combination of vaccination and cattle-based measures.

In 2012, following a scientific review of the evidence on culling and the alternatives, the Welsh government abandoned plans for a cull.

70 percent of those who said they were aware of the culls in the ComRes study also demanded that they be brought to an immediate halt.

Caroline Allen, a vet and Green Party Animals Spokesperson, commented on Monday, "It is unbelievable that this Government is continuing to fund animal suffering after the shambles of last year's pilot culls and the news so far suggests that this year is just as bad. In the meantime Wales has been doing what we suggested: concentrating on cattle. The results in Wales are impressive, the number of cattle compulsorily slaughtered as a result of TB testing having fallen by more than 50% since 2009 without a single badger being killed. 

"Data on new herd incidents in Wales for the 12 months to the end of March this year showed a 22% reduction on the previous 12 months, with the number of cattle slaughtered down by a third over the same period.  When will Defra and this Government end their ridiculous and deeply damaging obsession with killing Badgers?"