Protesters on the march again following the death of Geronimo the alpaca

Vets and animal activists are marching on Defra for a second time this afternoon (Wednesday 8 September) calling for an end to the badger cull and current TB policy.

Protesters are demanding an end to Defra’s current tuberculosis control methods and the event will also feature an announcement by Iain McGill of a new study comparing culled and unculled areas across the country.

Dr McGill, co-author of the study alongside Tom Langton and Mark Jones, hopes to demonstrate that there is “zero evidence” for badger culling having been a success at controlling bovine TB.

Now the researchers are calling on Defra to follow up on their new study and verify their numbers as they gather in Smith Square.

‘Zero impact’

Dr McGill said: “Up to £100 million of public money has been wasted, for zero impact. Even worse for Defra is that they admit that it would only take them 46 hours to reproduce our study and check our findings – but they consider 46 hours ‘too expensive’ to pursue.

“So, £100 million wasted on killing badgers, no auditing of efficacy, zero disease control impact – and having wasted so much money, they hide behind lies and deceit.

“Secondly, Defra have just published a cost benefit analysis for the badger culling policy. It claims that there are miniscule benefits for culling, but it fails to take account of the fact that the prevalence of the disease in cattle has not changed in England in the entirety of the time that Defra has been killing around 300,000 cattle, 5,000 alpacas and 160,000 badgers.

“The prevalence, or percentage, of herds affected by bTB in England is the same as it was in 2011, before badger culling started.”

‘No evidence’

Dominic Dyer, of Born Free Foundation, said the Government had wasted an estimated £70 million of public funds killing badgers across England.

Mr Dyer said: “From Cornwall to Cumbria they have produced no reliable evidence to show that this mass destruction of a protected species is having any impact on lowering bovine TB in cattle in or around the cull zones.

“Despite the brutal killing of Geronimo the alpaca, which has horrified the nation, Defra has yet to produce a response to its calls for views on the introduction of improved TB testing and cattle control measures to lower the spread of the bovine TB and bring a final end to cruel costly and ineffective badger cull.”