Riddle of resolving the badger balance
Badgers first became protected by the Badger Act in 1973 – not because they're rare or endangered, but because of illegal baiting.
Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Sharon Davis-Culham of the Shropshire Vaccination Project are protesting about a Shropshire cull, saying we will lose all our badgers. It is claimed "60,000 badgers could be killed in England and Wales; 35 per cent of the total population".
Which is it? All or 35 per cent? According to a report in Nature in 2017, there are 485,000 badgers – an increase of 250,000 since the 1980s. Surely 60,000 isn't a third of 485,000.
Sharon believes Shropshire's 4,187 badgers will be culled to extinction. Where did she get this number – I can't find it!
John Gunnell of London University says "There were twice as many setts in 2003 as in 1988, and badgers are the main predator of hedgehogs, whose numbers have plunged by two-thirds since 1995".
One ate mine in my garden.
Protesters don't want to hear this. Neither do I. I want both here, but nature's balance was upset back in 1973. Can we resolve it? And cows and bTB? That's another man-made nightmare!
Rosemary Allen is a retired livestock farmer living near Ellesmere
