Badger Culling And Control Of Bovine Tuberculosis

EDM number 1288 in 2007-08, proposed by Alan Meale on 31/03/2008.
Categorised under the topics of Animal diseases and Wildlife.

That this House is aware that currently the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is considering giving the go-ahead for a widespread cull of badgers in England and Wales, under the guise of helping to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle; believes that such a course of action would stand against the advice of the Government's own appointed Independent Scientific Group on the subject which concluded in its report that badger culling would make no meaningful contribution to cattle tuberculosis control in the UK; recalls that the Department's own recent public consultation on the subject prompted a record 47,472 responses, 95 per cent. of which opposed such actions, including responses from a number of key stakeholders such as the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and others who indicated that they will not allow such measures to be carried out on any of their land holdings; calls on the Government to listen instead to these views and learn from their expertise and concerns; and asks them not to authorise such action but instead to urge agricultural interests to focus their endeavours on other disease control methods including more vigorous testing of cattle and increased biosecurity.

This motion has been signed by a total of 38 MPs.