The shooting of thousands of badgers will go ahead next year but not until after the Olympics to prevent police resources being overstretched by the £4? million security operation required for the cull.
Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, set the Government on course for a showdown with animal rights protesters yesterday by approving culls in two trial areas in an attempt to control bovine TB.
The trials will take place in “late autumn” after police chiefs warned that forces would struggle to provide the manpower required to prevent clashes between protesters and farmers if culls took place in the run up to London 2012.
It is estimated that keeping order during the four-year pilot scheme will cost around £4?million.
The badger cull is expected to lead to a 16 per cent reduction in bovine TB, which was behind the slaughter of 25,000 cattle in England last year.
To be effective, 75 per cent of badgers in the two 150 square-kilometre trial areas will have to be shot, according to calculations. The last count 10 years ago estimated that there were 350,000 badgers in Britain.
Mrs Spelman said the Government was committed to tackling “TB from all angles, using all available tools”.
“I know there is great strength of feeling on this issue but I also know that we need to take action now before the TB situation deteriorates even further,” she said. “I am acutely aware that many people are opposed to the culling of badgers and I wish that there was a current satisfactory alternative.
“But we can’t escape the fact that the evidence supports the case for the controlled reduction of the badger population in the areas affected by bovine TB.” Farmers and landowners will be invited to bid to run the trials. They will then be responsible for training marksmen to kill the badgers. Mrs Spelman said the pilot scheme would be judged on its “effectiveness, humaneness and safety”.
The West and South West are worst affected by the disease, with one in four cattle farms unable to move their livestock because of fear of infection.
The disease is expected to cost the taxpayer £1?billion over the next 10 years.
An extra £250,000 is to be made available each year for vaccinating badgers against TB, but the animals need to be trapped and caged before a vaccine can be administered by injection. An oral vaccine was “still years away”, said Mrs Spelman. She added. “This terrible disease is getting worse and we have got to deal with the devastating impact it has on farmers and rural communities.
“Evidence tells us that unless we tackle the disease in badgers, we will never eradicate it in cattle.” Mary Creagh, Labour’s environment spokesman, claimed the method of licensed badger culls was “unproven and untested”. “The cull will not be cost-effective or humane and it will not work,” she added.
The Humane Society International is submitting a formal complaint against the policy to the 1979 Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. The society said ministers had failed to examine alternatives to the cull, which it claimed lacked “legitimate purpose” and posed a significant threat to badger populations.
Joe Duckworth, the chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, added: “The Government has failed to act appropriately on this issue and in doing so has ignored the science, public opinion and past mistakes. This is a cowardly decision taken to appease the few who shout the loudest but sadly it will do very little to address the real problem.”