Licence issued for badger cull in West Somerset

11:08pm Thursday 4th October 2012 in News

A LICENCE allowing farmers to shoot badgers in West Somerset in a bid to combat the spread of TB in cattle has been issued. 

Natural England granted the licence to a specially-formed company for just under a 100 square mile area of land. 

It means the people covered by the licence can shoot badgers in the pilot zone for six weeks annually for four years.

Culling can begin once the dates and quota of badgers that can be shot have been confirmed.

Comments(12)

twinkles says...
10:51am Fri 5 Oct 12

Is there anything less this report could contain? May as well say "Animals Die" and leave it at that!
Where is this 100 square mile area? Show us on a map, maybe?
What is the quota of badgers?

Come on chaps and chapesses, give us a proper story!

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alibridgwater says...
1:36pm Fri 5 Oct 12

I wonder if these Cullers are going to enjoy slaughtering these slow moving creatures ??

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FreeSpeech? says...
10:57am Sat 6 Oct 12

Probably as some farmers love to put the blame on anything rather than look closer to home, take for example Bovine TB as the name suggests it relates to cattle and as such it must have been the cattle who gave it to the badgers so now the badgers must suffer.
For decades now the have been trying to tackle this problem & surely its time they realised its time to vaccinate, please don't say its too expensive as all drugs are expensive to start with and get cheaper with time and after all if it had been done 50yrs ago the vaccination would be pence now.

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Guy Smiley says...
12:46pm Mon 8 Oct 12

FreeSpeech. Are you serious? Are you an expert in infectious diseases?

So - you get Feline HIV and Feline Leukemia. Does that mean cats are the source of all global HIV and blood cancer?!? Come on. At least read-up on a subject and have *some* knowledge before pretending to know what you are talking about.

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FreeSpeech? says...
6:37pm Mon 8 Oct 12

The word Bovine means ox and as such does not mean badger, so as it is Bovine TB it can obviously jump species otherwise badgers couldn't catch or carry it. Perhaps you yourself should swot up a little Guy before making brash statements, remember Bird Flu? It wasn't just our little feathered friends that were at risks was it?

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Guy Smiley says...
7:40pm Mon 8 Oct 12

So are cows the source of human TB?

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FreeSpeech? says...
8:10pm Mon 8 Oct 12

Guy Smiley wrote:
So are cows the source of human TB?
Q1.Why are the badgers being culled?
A. Because they carry Bovine TB.
Bovine TB as the name Bovine suggests means OX or cow, meaning it comes from cattle.
Q2. Why was there a mass panic amongst the worlds population a couple of years ago when there was an outbreak of Avian influenza(Bird flu)?
A. Because it could jump species & infect humans.
I'm sorry I cannot explain it any plainer and if you have difficulty grasping it may I suggest you consult someone else.

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Guy Smiley says...
9:07pm Mon 8 Oct 12

Er. TB = bacterial infection and generally non species specific (I.e. e-coli from a goat or salmonella from a chicken)

Avian flu = virus. Usually species specific but can mutate and jump species.

So, badgers and cattle are both infected with TB but the more mobile badgers spread the infection.

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Guy Smiley says...
9:09pm Mon 8 Oct 12

And please, what's the difference between slaughtering an infected cow and shooting an infected badger?

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FreeSpeech? says...
9:23pm Mon 8 Oct 12

Guy Smiley wrote:
And please, what's the difference between slaughtering an infected cow and shooting an infected badger?
None whatsoever, but my point was why don't they vaccinate both thus saving on destruction, disposal and lock down of infected farms.
Nice to see from your previous comment that you actually looked the subjects up.

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Grumpygutz says...
12:30am Tue 9 Oct 12

at last .

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Useacarpark.com says...
11:18am Tue 9 Oct 12

Why don't we solve this issue with facts. Cull 100 badgers from different areas across Somerset, place the badgers into individual hermetically sealed bags, send all the dead badgers for testing and see how many have TB? If a high percentage have TB, then trial the cull for a few months and then see how the TB problem in cattle fares. If TB isn't rife in badgers, then go back to the drawing board. I'm by no means a hippy, but I can't understand the senseless killing of any animal, we all have our place.

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