LONDON: Nearly 50,000 badgers could be killed over 4,950 km2 of England as part of the ‘cull' approved by the UK government this week. Campaigning animal group Viva! has learned the true scale of farmers' plans to kills thousands of badgers in parts of England. If the plans get full go ahead, badgers will be shot in a total land area much larger than Cornwall. Around 49,500 badgers would be hunted with high-powered rifles if the policy is rolled out to the 33 areas suggested by the National Farmers Union (NFU). However, some reports put the figure as high as 90,000. Illegal slaughtering could make the figure significantly higher. Viva! have condemned the announcement from the NFU as “gratuitous, cruel and pointless” and say that England could be on the brink of a wildlife massacre the likes of which the country has never before seen. On July 19, Defra minister Caroline Spelman announced pilot ‘culls' in two as-of-yet unannounced areas in England in 2012. Viva! have previously condemned this move as politically driven and scientifically bankrupt. Should the trial ‘culls' result in a roll out, the NFU have said that they have already identified 33 areas where they want to kill badgers. These areas are at least 150km2 each – leading Viva! to conclude that the true area could be even bigger than now feared. Justin Kerswell, Viva!'s campaigns manager, says: “Sadly, the Government's politically motivated decision to back ‘culling' in parts of England was not unexpected. However, it is only now emerging what the potential full extent of these killing fields may be. The farming unions appear to be initiating an almost military maneuver on an unprecedented scale. Public enemy No1 is the humble badger: victim of political back-slapping, bad science and cynicism. Farmers may say that badgers are not the enemy – but they have a very strange way of showing it. They seem positive gleeful about the impending deaths of tens of thousands of these wild animals.” VIVA!
