THE Dorset Wildlife Trust is backing a petition to end the badger cull.

As reported in the Echo yesterday, the government has granted new licences for badger culling, one of which could see more than 2000 killed in Dorset.

The trust is supporting the online petition started by its president emeritus, Simon King OBE.

It is calling for the withdrawal of licences that have been issued by the government to cull badgers, particularly in Dorset.

The trust called badger culling a “deeply flawed” method for controlling the spread of bovine TB.

DWT has its own herd of cattle in west Dorset and believes that alternative methods, such as badger vaccination in the short-term, implementing effective bio-security on farms and vaccinating cattle are more viable alternatives to culling badgers.

It has also already started a vaccination programme on its nature reserves in areas which are close to livestock in west Dorset.

DWT chief executive, Dr Simon Cripps said: “As owners of livestock ourselves, we have every sympathy with farmers who lose cattle as a result of bovine tuberculosis, however culling badgers is not the way to solve this problem and the government know it.

Dorset’s wildlife and our county’s farmers are both too important for government to be issuing this wrong and ill-conceived advice, and so deserve better.

Not only is the government not giving advice based on sound, credible science, they are building up expectations that this could succeed and causing serious divisions within communities.

“Through the petition we are calling on Government to stick to evidence-based decisions, to stop wasting public money on something that performs no public service, and to give genuine support to the farming industry and wildlife by implementing a cattle vaccine and associated trade agreements just as other countries have done.

“There is overwhelming support from rural and urban communities for stopping this cull and the bad advice that needlessly perpetuates it.”

Culling is just part of the government’s strategy to tackle bovine TB and it says that it is delivery results with more than half of the country on track to be free of the disease by the end of this parliament.

It believes that advice and experience shows that the disease will not be eradicated unless it is tackled in the badger population.