Owen Paterson hasn't ruled out Shropshire badger cull
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson insisted today he is still investigating bringing a controversial badger cull in parts of Shropshire.
Despite problems with trial culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset, which failed to hit targets for numbers of animals killed, the North Shropshire MP says he has not ruled out a future cull in the county.
Mr Paterson said something must be done to eradicate bovine TB in cattle, which has caused the death of 305,000 otherwise healthy cattle, costing taxpayers half a billion pounds.
And in a message to protestors he said he hopes the festive period will make people realise the devastating affect the disease has on farmers. He said: "TB puts an horrendous strain on families who own cattle and at present there is no vaccine despite what protestors say.
"This government is the first one that has really tried to tackle this awful disease. There are a lot of dairy and beef farmers across Shropshire and bovine TB is putting them under horrendous strain.
"Nobody seems to ever talk about that – instead people have this obsession with wildlife.
"I hope during the festive period people will start to think about the farmers and their families and how this is affecting them."
An independent panel of experts is to produce a report in the new year on the trial culls with protesters saying no action to expand the cull should be taken until it is produced. The panel is chaired by professor Ranald Munro, who will advise ministers on the next steps to take.
Mr Paterson said he will wait for that report before deciding what action to take, adding: "They will present their findings to me and I will decide what to do. Until we can develop a vaccine we have to use all the tools at our disposal.
"Culls have taken place in America, Australia, New Zealand and in many other countries across the world. All we are doing is addressing this disease as those other countries have and they have all seen drastic improvements. We are simply following the common sense of other countries."
Mr Paterson said if the problem is not resolved it will cost the country £1 billion.
He added: "We do not want to see it reach one billion. People need to ask if we want to spend a billion pounds on this disease, or if we want to get it under control and spend the money on nurses salaries, better school equipment, better roads and more policemen."
