Farmers resist cull of healthy sheep

3 April 2001



Farmers resist cull of healthy sheep

By FWi staff

THE National Sheep Association has told its members to refuse let Ministry of Agriculture officials cull healthy breeding sheep.

Britains sheep industry is being irreparably damaged by the loss of important bloodlines because of the cull, said NSA chief executive John Thorley.

Healthy sheep should only be culled if a proper assessment showed that foot-and-mouth disease would be spread if they remained alive, he said.

Ministers have not yet replied to a plan to protect breeding sheep and rare breeds submitted to the he government by the NSA, Mr Thorley claimed.

Mr Thorley said: It is important that sheep which could be retained under the scheme proposed should not be slaughtered in the meantime.

The strategy to prevent key breeding sheep being culled was put together by the NSA, the Sheep Veterinary Society and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.