A Merseyside-based animal rights group has revealed what it is like to sabotage badger culls.
Katie Brown, alongside Merseyside Animal Rights, a group she has been involved with for nearly two decades, has been protecting wildlife areas around Cheshire. The volunteer has been stopping hunters from luring badgers out of their setts before shooting and killing them.
She told the ECHO that hunters have a protocol in which if there is a human presence they aren’t allowed to shoot.
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She said: “Our presence alone is enough to protect the badgers. We operate as a group on a rota basis and ensure we have nightly cover so there are people out protecting the setts every night. It has been an exhausting and gruelling eight weeks because you are up all night because that is when the badgers come out (of hiding). We would be out from dusk onwards till the morning and come home and go straight to our jobs.”
It is thought tens of thousands of badgers face being slaughtered in the coming weeks. The government added a further 11 culling zones to the already existing 61 zones and these now expand over areas including Gloucestershire, Somerset and Cheshire. The addition of the new locations could mean that up to 67,801 badgers could be killed this year alone.
The extension to cull zones forms part of efforts to curb the spread of bovine tuberculosis (TB). Cull supporters blame badgers for fuelling the spread of TB across the country, with 26,000 cows slaughtered in England in the past 12 months because of the infection.
They also believe the programme, which sees badgers killed through shooting and cage trapping, is helping ease TB in cattle. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) hopes to have a jab for cows by 2025, and eradicate TB by 2035.
Due to “security reasons,” Defra said it was unable to confirm where or when culls take place, but a spokesperson told the ECHO : “Bovine TB is one of the most difficult and intractable animal health challenges that the livestock sector in England faces today, causing considerable trauma for farmers and costing taxpayers over £100 million every year.
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“Our bovine TB eradication strategy has led to a significant reduction in this insidious disease. As a result of the progress made, we have issued new badger control licences for the last time. We are now moving onto the next phase of the long-term eradication strategy, including steps to expand badger vaccination alongside improved cattle testing and a possible cattle vaccine.”
However, wildlife campaigners insist the government’s culling policy is expensive, inhumane and ineffective. They also fear the new scheme could lead to badgers becoming extinct in certain areas.
Katie, who believes “no slaughter is necessary”, said: “When you kill badgers, new badgers move in and they might have TB and therefore could bring TB into an area that didn’t have it before. We feel like we can never hold our breath with this because you never know which direction the government might take. As long as there are culls happening, our volunteers will be prepared to protect animals and badgers.
"I love animals and I have that empathy for them, but for me, it is a wider issue. It is between what's right and wrong and it's not just about how we treat animals but it's how we treat each other, those who are different from us and the planet. Caring for and protecting animals is just one part of that.”
The government has said no new badger disease control licences will be issued after December 2022, with the focus shifting to vaccinating badgers and cattle. However, campaigners argue that because the licences run for four years, badgers could be killed up to 2026, and the supplementary licences add a further two years.
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