Please sign the petition today and voice your protest against the Welsh Assembly Government's decision to cull badgers in Wales as part of a strategy to tackle bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle.

The RSPCA is shocked by the decision to cull badgers but welcomes the plans to increase cattle testing and biosecurity.

The Independent Scientific Group (ISG) supervised a badger culling trial in England, which took 10 years, cost £34 million, and the lives of nearly 11,000 badgers. The research found that culling badgers alters the social behaviour of remaining badgers which, in turn, increases the risk of the disease spreading both to other badgers and to cattle. Only by wiping out badgers over very extensive areas might this increased risk of disease be avoided. The ISG considered that culling badgers on such a scale was not a feasible control option, because of logistical, economic, legal, environmental and welfare concerns. They therefore concluded that, whilst badgers are a source of bovine TB in cattle, culling badgers could make no meaningful contribution to the control of TB in cattle in Britain.

Despite this, the Welsh Assembly Government has decided, that a badger cull should go ahead.The Minister for Rural Affairs, Elin Jones announced plans for a pilot cull in an area of North Pembrokeshire alongside other measures.

The RSPCA believes the way in which this area has been chosen will mean that any lessons learnt, if there are any, will not be applicable to the rest of the country. It was also be difficult to tell if which parts of the government's control strategy may have worked.

The cull will be co-ordinated and delivered by the government and the expected method will be through cage trapping and shooting.

The majority of badgers do not have TB. But it is not practical to identify infected badgers in the wild. This means it is likely that most of the badgers killed in any cull will not actually have TB. A badger cull could cause enormous suffering and actually increase the spread of disease.

The RSPCA believes that the Welsh Assembly Government should now be concentrating on improving cattle-based control measures such as pre and post-movement testing and stringent biosecurity measures, which the ISG believed would achieve substantial reductions in TB incidence. The measures need proper monitoring and enforcement to make sure that they are being carried out and are allowed time to have an effect.

Please register your concern to the Welsh Assembly Minister for Rural Affairs, Elin Jones and add your name to the petition.

For more information on our campaign to stop the cull of badgers in England and Wales, visit www.rspca.org.uk/badgers

Sign the petition now!

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