LETTER – Paul and Elaine Evans say the badger cull is a disaster. For who or what I ask?

A cull of diseased badgers will save a lot of wildlife, like hedgehogs, leverets (baby hares) skylarks, voles, moorhens, bumble bees, and other vulnerable creatures that the voracious and out of control animals now devour without mercy.

Farm vets agree bovine TB is spread by infected badgers to healthy cattle, and not vice versa, and if not controlled will eventually lead to all cattle and all badgers dying from the disease, suffering greatly.

Intensive farming is necessary if we are not to end up like Zimbabwe, where the land has reverted to waste, with a few goats and vegetable patches replacing what was once the “bread-basket of Africa”.

It is dangerous nonsense to claim that mankind could survive on the output of organic farms and without cattle, sheep or pigs to provide essential manure, if fertilisers are banned, as well as sprays to control pests and diseases.

Yes, it may be possible one day to fix nitrogen to plant roots, as legumes (peas, beans etc) do, but only with genetically modified varieties, which the “green” lobby opposes as hysterically as it does meat, milk and eggs!

I am afraid that in the real world it will be necessary to push aside protests from those “hippy” bunny-hugging, badger-worshipping people, who would be the first to complain if the shop shelves were empty – as in Zimbabwe – or the lights went out because they prevented new power stations from being built, or their children died because antibiotics or vaccines were banned or maybe contracted bovine TB from a “rescue badger”, a real possibility.

Get real I say!

W F Kerswell, Picklescott