Wales misses out in badger culling trials
Wales misses out in badger culling trials
THERE will be no badger culling trials in Wales despite strong pressure from milk producers, especially in Monmouthshire.
Rural affairs minister Carwyn Jones claims that there are scientific and logistical reasons why Wales did not have trial culling areas as part of the Governments badger control programme.
But angry producers in Monmouthshire, where there were 33 confirmed cases of bovine tuberculosis in 1999, and 33 in the first nine months of last year, are unhappy about being left out. They told NFU president Ben Gill when he visited the county that they did not believe politicians were serious about cutting the fast growing badger population.
He was told that farmers believed that the government was frightened of do-gooders and unlikely to press for additional action. If this was the case the union should demand payments to farmers for the time they gave to routine tests. *