Trust banks on badger jabs to fight bTB

Cheshire Wildlife Trust has finished its first year of badger vaccination to curb bovine tuberculosis (bTB).

The Trust is confident that vaccination and not culling is the right way forward to fight the disease.

Richard Gardner, from the Trust charity said: "We have to ask ourselves how much longer the Government is going to ignore the overwhelming voice of the independent scientific community."

"The cull trials were set-up with a principle aim – to test whether free-shoot culling was an effective and viable process, and on that basis they have singularly failed."

"The fact the Government is still persisting with a now extended cull programme shows a desperate to attempt to regain some credibility for what has been a disastrous trial that has missed all its key targets."

In Cheshire, the vaccination roll-out has now covered more than 1,000 hectares of Cheshire countryside.

Mr Gardner added: "From our own modest start last autumn, we have seen around a ten-fold increase in the area of land where badger vaccination has taken place in Cheshire, including take-up from several private farmers and 77 badgers being treated."

"Surely now is the time to draw a line under culling, and start to look into a wider roll-out of badger vaccination as a vital tool in getting to grips with TB in our livestock herds and wildlife."

Government advisors have expressed concern that a planned cull programme may not provide a "worthwhile gain for farmers" as agreement was reached on a controversial extensions to badger culling trials in Gloucestershire.

Natural England has also questioned the Government's 70% cull targets after lower than expected numbers of badgers were killed in the initial Somerset trial – despite an extension.

Cheshire Wildlife Trust has raised more than £20,000 from a public appeal to support badger vaccination work against TB across Cheshire. You can donate to the project on theCheshire Wildlife Trust website here

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