IN response to the farmer who advocated a cull of badgers in last week's Forester, I would like to make clear that I share his concerns over Bovine TB and would like to see the disease eradicated. However, I do not think the random killing of badgers will reduce it and I would like to make the following points:

1. On July 13, The Times newspaper published a letter from members of the Independent Scientific Group stating that the free shooting of badgers by local farmers can only spread the disease if it is present in badgers. Badgers can run and, indeed, they can swim!

2. Lord Krebs, who led the 10-year Randomised Badger Culling Trial said last week that localised culling will leave 85 per cent of the Bovine TB problem untouched and that, in the areas concerned, it would only temporarily reduce it.

3. He advised that badger vaccination is the best short term control (and there is a vaccination for badgers against Bovine TB) and that long term controls are best done through better biosecurity on farms and in markets. In view of the present tests for the disease in cattle being unreliable, the best permanent hope is that a vaccine against Bovine TB will soon be available for cattle, with EU approval. Defra are already looking into this option.

4. The Badger Trust will legally challenge any government cull and, judging by their success against the proposed Welsh cull in 2010, may be successful again, as science is actually on the side of the badgers. Six out of any seven badgers culled will be disease free.

5. Badger culls in England will seriously affect tourism as they have done in Pembrokeshire, the area threatened with a cull last year in Wales. People have lost their jobs and had their businesses reduced as a result.

6. Biosecurity on farms and in markets needs tightening. A recent Viva investigation in Welsh markets showed that most farmers ignored simple measures like disinfecting their boots and that, on occasions, healthy and diseased cattle were mixed. There have been cases on farms of switched tags between tested animals (see Pembrokshire Against the Cull's website). I doubt the situation is any different in England.

7. The new Welsh Labour Government has postponed an imminent cull and decided on a new scientific enquiry, before deciding what to do. Bovine TB has been recently declining in West Wales.

8. The dairy industry is often too intensive to keep dairy cattle healthy. The dairy cow is the most hard worked animal in the farming industry. Artificially pressurized conditions are present, where cows only live a few years as reproductive machines and their offspring, if unfortunate to be male, are routinely discarded. Farmers need to look into their own practices before blaming everything on a wild species.

9. It is not acceptable to wage war against our wildlife. The badger has no natural predator because we, over centuries, have killed them. The predator now is man. Can we please have some compassion for our wild animals, who have a right to life, as we do and who do not harm people, as we harm them?

Joyce Moss

Lydney