Paterson: ‘I’ve had death threats over badger cull’
DEFRA secretary Owen Paterson has confirmed that the trial cull of badgers will go ahead from June this year – despite receiving death threats from anti-cull extremists.
Speaking to around 80 farmers at a meeting in Tiverton, Devon, he said that no other country had managed to control TB without culling diseased wildlife. “Where you have a significant cattle industry and a problem of TB in wildlife, you have to bear down on both.”
In County Donegal, a rigorous badger cull cut TB levels by 96%, while action in New Zealand against possums, Australia against buffalo, and Michigan against white-tailed deer, had proved similarly successful.
“We are heading for a bill of £1bn [over the next decade] – we cannot keep hauling off 26,000 cattle to slaughter every year. We know what the solution is and I can assure you there will be two pilot culls starting in June. We simply have to prove this method of culling works, and roll it out the following year, because we cannot allow this disease to run rampant and destroy our cattle industry.”
Mr Paterson admitted that a lot of public opinion was against the cull, but said he was not a “nasty brutish government minister culling badgers”.
“I have had more death threats since I took over at DEFRA than I did when I was secretary for Northern Ireland,” he said. “But these animals die a horrible death from this disease – and it is not sensible to let any population get over-preponderous.”
The government was working with the EU on a 10-year programme to develop a TB vaccine, he added. “It would be lovely to press a button called ‘vaccination’, but in fact we don’t have a vaccine today that we can use – we have to obey OIE [the World Organisation for Animal Health] rules.”
Mr Paterson also supported greater research into the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test to identify diseased setts and cattle, and said the government would investigate the treatment of alpacas, which were currently exempt from movement controls.
However, a spokesperson for the RSPCA said they were deeply disappointed at the announcement, and again called for more effective biosecurity and vaccination of badgers and cattle instead. “The RSPCA stands ready to work alongside all those seeking an alternative to this barbaric cull.”
As of Monday (28 January), more than 168,000 people had signed Brian May’s petition to stop the cull. Mr May had also met Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, last week, to discuss the ongoing fight against the government’s plans.