And So It Begins: Pointless Badger Cull Starts Up Again Today

June 1st marks the official start of the 2024 supplementary badger cull. This means that innocent badgers will be shot dead from today all the way through till January 31st 2025.

Since the start of badger culling in 2013, a staggering 230,125 badgers have been sentenced to death by this Government, all because cattle farmers won’t hold their hands up and take responsibility for their own dirty mess. This is largely caused by poor biosecurity, poorly regulated cattle movement, the swapping of ear tags, TB testing that’s not fit for purpose, and the lack of a licensed cattle vaccine.

The culling of around half the population of badgers in England has done nothing to stop the spread of TB in cattle. But rather than facing the facts, it’s much easier to make a scapegoat of badgers.

Some farmers in Wales have been calling for a cull, using their regular mouthpiece the farmer celebrity wannabe to push their agenda, based on no factual or scientific evidence. It is not difficult to show how ridiculous culling badgers really is. On March 4th this year, three farmers from Pembrokeshire were fined for deliberately swapping ear tags on cattle that were infected with bovine tuberculosis.

The judge said the farmers had “acted recklessly”, the prosecution claimed the regulation breaches were so serious that they met the custodial threshold; however the judge opted to impose a confiscation order totalling £217,906.25, along with costs of £94,569.64, and a fine of £2000 to each of the farmers per offence, tallying up to £72,000.

The Pembrokeshire farmers are not an isolated incident. Another example is Cheshire hunt supporter and cattle dealer Anthony Kirkham, who is currently serving a 9 year prison sentence for rape. In 2015 Kirkham served another stretch in prison, on this occasion just 4 months, for repeatedly ignoring disease control regulations. The court heard how Kirkham had shown “wilful disregard of a court order, and had risked the health of the national herd”.

In nearly 30 years of cattle dealing he’s also received more than £20,000 in fines for breaching cattle movement orders, plus £24.000 in costs, with offences dating as far back as 1987, including convictions in May 2003, then again in November 2003 for breaching foot and mouth regulations. In 2011 he was convicted of 87 offences for breaches of the ‘Tuberculosis Order 2007’, with a further 102 offences also considered. Again in 2013, he was convicted of a further eight offences under the ‘Tuberculosis Order 2007’, and in 2014 received a conditional discharge for failing to provide movement records.

As recently as March this year it was announced that the government had performed a U-turn on their promise to gradually phase out the badger cull. But with a General Election now on July 4th, and with previous promises by the Labour party to scrap the senseless slaughter of badgers, maybe soon we’ll see an end to the killing.

Please contact your constituency candidates and ask them if they will be supporting an immediate end to the badger cull.