NATURAL England has received 25 applications for or expressions of interest in a licence to cull badgers in the South West – but won’t say where due to the controversy over the culls.

The 25 applications to ‘cull badgers for the purpose of preventing bovine TB’ have been received by Natural England from Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Cornwall and a notification has gone into the Gazette this week for information relevant to the licences to be received before Wednesday, March 16.

We covered all sides of the badger culling arguments after Devon County Council voted to allow the culls on their land on March 2014.

The purpose of the culls is to prevent or reduce the infection of tuberculosis, or TB, in cattle populations.

Farmers can lose entire herds of cows to TB, animals that they and their family have raised since birth; some know them all by name. One farmer said: ‘The age of the cow has no relevance to the choice to destroy, calves, pregnant cows, mothers with calves at foot, it is an instant death sentence.’

If an animal is diagnosed with TB before they have the chance to produce milk, then the expense and effort going into their raising will all be wasted. 278,263 head of cattle were slaughtered due to TB in the UK since in 2001.

The Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB published their final report in 2007, in which they carried out trial badger culls nationwide and studied all the peer-reviewed evidence available.

This report states that reactive culling – culling badgers after a breakout of TB – was completely ineffective, sometimes increasing the incidence of bovine TB in the area. This is due to the complex behavioural patterns of badgers and the fact that you are creating a vacant space for more infected badgers to move into.

The report also states, however, that proactive culling – destroying infected sets before there has been transmission to local cattle – did reduce the incidence of TB, although can increase the incidence in surrounding areas.

There is not currently an option to vaccinate cattle against TB as there is a ban on the TB vaccination in the EU, meaning British cattle, beef and milk would be unsellable on the EU market.

There is a vaccination for badgers, but each vaccine costs £20 and each trap costs £100, and if the badger is already infected with TB, it will do nothing.

The humane course of action for an animal with TB is euthanasia, but no one is going to contest that any animal culled or euthanised, for any reason, should suffer; with clean shots to heart or head, bringing about instant death, the only morally acceptable option.

The link to comment on the applications for licences will go live on Thursday, February 18: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/bovine-tb-comment-on-a-badger-control-licence- application-or-expression-of-interestYou can also comment in writing via email: [email protected] or by post: Natural England, BM 6283, London, WC1N 3XX. Respondents should ‘provide specific details of how the proposed activity will affect them or their interests’.