The Badger Cull

As many of you will know the badger cull has recently restarted in Gloucester and Somerset. They are estimated to kill over 1,000 badgers in an effort to tackle the disease bTB (Bovine Tuberculosis) in cattle, which caused 26,000 cows to be slaughtered in England last year! 

It is though, that the cull is not scientifically proven to reduce the spread of the disease so could mean that 1,000 badgers are killed for no reason, this upsets me a lot. 

Badgers are often blamed for the spread but almost any plant eating mammals transmit too (EG. Deer, Sheep and Pigs). The reason that badgers are blamed though, is due to the fact that they are found to cross graze with cattle. The infected badgers dig for earthworms in the cows field and spread the disease on to the grass, the cattle will then eat this grass and catch the disease, later this is then spread to the whole herd, eventually causing the whole lot to be slaughtered. 

It is estimated that the cull will cost £1,000 pounds for every badger killed (Meaning that the whole cull will cost £1.2m of the tax payers money), whereas it only costs £850 for the badgers to be cage trapped and given a vaccination. 

Last year out of the 600 badgers shot only a handful of them were infected with bTB, and 50% of them took longer than five minutes to die, quite inhumane in my view!

If you are interested in helping the badger cull then you can sign a petition at: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-the-badger-cull