End of this year’s badger slaughter

The government’s policy of culling badgers is not only cruel, but also highly ineffective. Since 1975, more than 30,000 badgers have been killed in failed attempts to control bovine TB, yet tests revealed that 80 per cent of the slaughtered animals were free of the disease. The government is unwilling to acknowledge that it is intensive farming practices, not badgers, which play a key role in the spread of bovine TB.

Commercial dairy cows are selectively bred for unnatural levels of milk production; they are fed an almost indigestible high protein diet; they are increasingly confined in units that allow them rare forays into the fresh air; and their calves are invariably taken from them at birth. These appalling practices lead not just to a high incidence of bovine TB, but also to a range of devastating conditions whose economic impact far outweighs that of TB itself. 90,000 cattle are culled annually due to mastitis, 31,000 due to lameness, and 125,000 as a result of reproductive failure.

Animal Aid urges the public to withdraw its support for the dairy industry, which causes terrible suffering to cows and uses badgers as a scapegoat for its own cruel – and ultimately self-destructive – practices. It has never been easier to give up dairy and adopt an animal-free diet.