Should the government cull Badgers?

Question

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7493846.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7057066.stm

Farmers want a cull of badgers to limit the spread of TB. The government says no, but many think they are only saying this to avoid the loss of more votes. What do you think and why?

Answer 1

No they are a protected animals. Badgers should be caught and innoculated against TB.

Answer 2

It should be the other way round where badgers cull politicians...

Answer 3

The risk of Bovine TB from badger to Cow is so low that it would not seem an appropriate course of action.

Answer 4

Cull gordon brown, i have given up showing him the respect of using capital letters in his name.

Answer 5

The figures show that the culling has in some instances actually increased the number of cases, plus it cost the taxpayer £7M per year for the pilot scheme.

Vaccination of cattle or badgers seems the best long-term solution.

Answer 6

As a result of devolution Wales are going to cull badgers and England isn't.  No idea what Scotland and Northern Ireland are planing to do yet, probaly something completely different.   However, the farmers need to be a little cautious - it appears the scientific community is divided over whether or not culling badgers will solve the problem and a great deal of people seem to be against the cull.

Answer 7

My understanding is that there's no conclusive evidence that TB does spread from badgers to cattle and that this is just an idea in theory. Again this only my understanding, but I'm under the impression that although the link is there, because it's never been proven then there's little point in proceeding with the culling. It doesn't sound like a nice thing to do anyway, but I think the reason for doing it is sound if it can be proved. To my understanding of the situation though it is still yet to be proved. [shrugs]

Answer 8

I saw a debate over this on tv and the arguement was quite convincing that there was no evidence that a badger cull would solve the problem.

Recent experience of a badger cull in Ireland backed this up.

Answer 9

No!

Answer 10

No, hoodies !! lol. (and for those PC cretins; "LOL" means i am making a JOKE, so don't bother reporting me !!).

Answer 11

no

there are some farms with dairy cows with no badgers and the cows still have tb

there is no defined proof it is the badgers so there cannot be a cull or a form of genocide

until there is

no

no

no

immigrants are bringing in tb and its spreading in communities

it had been stamped out here in the uk

but now its bac

so do we kill all the immigrants with tb too.

and we know it spreads from human to human

so why not human to cow.

country born and bred but scientific  minded too

Answer 12

it's already happening in wales!

Answer 13

No. There's no definitive proof that links the TB to the badgers. We could kill thousands of animals for absolutely no reason.