Five badgers were inoculated at two setts in Shropshire yesterday as part of a five-year trial by Shropshire Wildlife Trust. The trust wants to prove vaccination can control the spread of the disease in cattle. The jabs are in response to a trial cull of badgers in Gloucestershire and Somerset.

Farmers and the Government say the disease cost UK farms £100 million in 2010 and that vaccinations are costly and ineffective.

John Hughes, from Shropshire Wildlife Trust, said: “The problem isn’t the badgers, it’s the disease.”