High profile opponents of the Coalition government’s plans to press ahead with trial badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire this year have appealed to Westminster to postpone culling until a response has been received from the EU to a legal challenge.  

The badger culls are set to go ahead as part of the Coalition government’s bovine TB eradication programme and Defra ministers have said tackling the disease in wildlife is essential if it is to be wiped out in the UK. However, anti-cull activists suggest the plans are deeply flawed and believe that tighter cattle measures and a programme of vaccination would yield better results; such measures have been adopted by the UK’s derogated governments.

The Badger Trust has pointed out that a severe outbreak of bovine TB after the Second World War was successfully brought under control without recourse to culling.  

Conservationists are concerned that killing badgers, a protected species, would violate the Bern convention which protects European wildlife and environment. Although a legal challenge within the UK failed in July, when the High Court rejected claims made against the government by the Badger Trust on all grounds, the UK challenge has gone to appeal and the European challenge remains under consideration.

The anti-cull protestors, who include celebrities Joanna Lumley, Bill Oddie and Dame Judi Dench, have signed a letter asking the government to literally hold fire on the cull, which would see companies of farmers hiring markspeople to shoot free-running badgers and has been condemned as inhumane, ineffective and potentially devastatingly expensive for the farmers involved.

The appeal to the Bern convention and subsequent letter were organised by Humane Society International.

Although the Badger Cull’s appeal will be heard in September, having been expedited at Defra’s request to allow culling to go ahead later that month should the appeal fail, the decision-making Bern Standing Committee does not meet until November. However, another committee will reveal whether HSI’s appeal has been upheld in mid-September.  

Mark Jones, veterinarian and Executive Director of Humane Society International today said, “The Bern Convention clearly states that controlling badgers must not result in serious disturbance to their populations. HSI UK believes that randomly shooting these shy creatures at night with high velocity rifles must surely constitute a breach of that protection. As a signatory to Bern, it is only right and proper that the UK Government delay the slaughter until the Convention has considered the evidence.”

The campaign against the cull has become a cause celebre, with many famous naturalists, television personalities and even the Labour Party offering criticism of the government’s plans. However, Lord Krebs, who oversaw the randomised badger culling trials under the last Labour government, along with a number of scientists who worked with him on the trials and cull licensing body Natural England have also publicly criticised the government’s approach.

In England alone last year, 25,000 cattle were slaughtered as a result of bTB, which cost the government a total of £91m in compensation. Last year, after Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman gave culling government approval, Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh challenged the minister’s claim that "something must be done" by saying, "You say do something, but surely doing something effective is more useful than just doing something."

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