Shooting in Somerset last week marked the start of the government's acutely controversial badger cull trials. Culling is due to start imminently in the second trial zone in Gloucestershire, where local wildlife groups are claiming that shooting could begin tonight or on Tuesday.

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Shooters will target around 5,000 badgers in the two zones over a six-week period in order to establish whether targeting free-running animals can be conducted humanely and cost effectively. The trials form part of Defra's bovine TB control strategy.

Defra secretary Owen Paterson has already hailed the start of the cull as a success; updating MPs on their return to Parliament on Monday, he stated that culling is "proceeding to plan" and said cull companies are satisfied with the progress in the two zones. However, wildlife groups have decried the killing, which they maintain lacks the backing of both the general public and the scientific community.

Owen Paterson continued on Monday, "We know that despite the strict controls we already have in place, we won't get on top of this terrible disease until we start dealing with the infection in badgers as well as in cattle. That's the clear lesson from Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and the USA. We have to use every tool in the box because TB is so difficult to eradicate and it is spreading rapidly."

Paterson also said that culling constitutes only one part of Defra's bTB Eradication Strategy, which is much broader in scope.

However, staunch critics from the Badger Trust have accused Defra of failing to act quickly enough to improve on-farm biosecurity or cattle movement measures, and argued that badgers' contribution to the spread of bTB is minimal. On Tuesday (27th August), when shooting began in Somerset, Badger Trust Chair David Williams lamented the government's failure to address "cattle-to-cattle infection, the principal cause of bTB, [which] was inexcusably delayed for decades until now."

Humane Society International UK's Mark Jones, a qualified vet who has pledged to monitor culling in Gloucestershire alongside 220 other volunteers, talked on Monday (2nd September) about the "distressing" situation in the cull zones. He said, "The evidence emerging from Somerset after a week of badger shooting there, points to worrying accounts of badgers being shot and wounded [and] heard screaming in the dark... There have also been disturbing eye-witness accounts of disgraceful verbal abuse and intimidation by pro-cull enthusiasts.

"We've already seen some badger-friendly peaceful protesters subjected to similar intimidation here in Gloucestershire but I fear as the shooting starts we may see an escalation in threats to law-abiding citizens who merely want to monitor this secret, unscientific and cruel cull of innocent badgers."

Although the government maintains that it is merely exploring all available avenues in attempts to eradicate bovine TB, pointing out that 28,000 cattle were slaughtered in England in 2012 under bTB controls, cull opponents at the Badger Trust claim that culling amounts to a "cynical" diversion and have expressed concern over promises to extend the policy as early as next year, suggesting that culling could be a foregone conclusion.