“Of course culling a few badgers won't help the majority of farmers whose cattle are affected with bovine TB. TB control involving badger culling is politically motivated: whenever we have a Tory government, badger culling strategies of one type or another are proposed; with Labour we have had a series of consultative 'field experiments,' none of which have indicated that culling badgers is an effective control TB stratey, as none of these trials (e.g. Thornbury removal area; Reactive culling based round North Nibley in Gloucestershire; Krebs randomised badger culling trial) has ever properly been completed or carried through. This shameful pattern has been repeating, regular as clockwork, since the 1970s.

Meanwhile, badgers continue to be killed pointlessly and often inhumanely. Countelss livestock farmers have lost their livelihoods and peace of mind as they continue to be fobbed off by effectively, what I would consider to be the lies they are told regarding the primary source of bovine TB in this country (and it's probably a result of the wildly ineffective / subjective tuberculin skin test that's used to diagnose TB in cattle, which yeilds false negatives in a significant proporion of cases), which have been promoted by a succession of inept governments and even more shamefully, the actual political lobbying body that represents farmers, the NFU.

This culling nonsense is not fair to badgers or to cattle farmers. The whole situation is a 40-year national disgrace, and is a textbook example of how politics, and the results of scientific research cannot mix.”

“The views of 'Draylon' are sound. Political messes like these drive farmers to suicide and badgers to horrible, unnecessary culling. This is why we must get rid of the muddled thinking which goes on in goverment. Since 'Yes Minister' cleverly showed us through humour we realise that there are too many issues and not enough sound processes to help solve the problems we face. I have always found that breaking problems down into their smallest parts we can find solutions which really work. Ask some questions and break down the answers.1. Are we using this farming land wisely? Cows are expensive to feed and care for and there are many pressures on Dairy Farmers. 2. The Badgers are part of the ecosystem and an have been around longer than humans. They are better parents, they are cleaner, they are more effective users of their environment than humans. Should we be killing something which we are not superior to, or should we be thinking about their value to the ecoystem? 3.With all our science we have no definitive answer to the causes of TB in cattle. We should not reach for the gun, rather we should put more funds into finding an answer which satisfies the farmers. They cannot stand any further prevarication by successive governments. They will kill the badgers or they will shoot themselves. Help the Badgers stay alive and help the farmers stay sane.”

“The views of 'Draylon' are sound. Political messes like these drive farmers to suicide and badgers to horrible, unnecessary culling. This is why we must get rid of the muddled thinking which goes on in goverment. Since 'Yes Minister' cleverly showed us through humour we realise that there are too many issues and not enough sound processes to help solve the problems we face. I have always found that breaking problems down into their smallest parts we can find solutions which really work. Ask some questions and break down the answers.1. Are we using this farming land wisely? Cows are expensive to feed and care for and there are many pressures on Dairy Farmers. 2. The Badgers are part of the ecosystem and an have been around longer than humans. They are better parents, they are cleaner, they are more effective users of their environment than humans. Should we be killing something which we are not superior to, or should we be thinking about their value to the ecoystem? 3.With all our science we have no definitive answer to the causes of TB in cattle. We should not reach for the gun, rather we should put more funds into finding an answer which satisfies the farmers. They cannot stand any further prevarication by successive governments. They will kill the badgers or they will shoot themselves. Help the Badgers stay alive and help the farmers stay sane.”

“The views of 'Draylon' are sound. Political messes like these drive farmers to suicide and badgers to horrible, unnecessary culling. This is why we must get rid of the muddled thinking which goes on in goverment. Since 'Yes Minister' cleverly showed us through humour we realise that there are too many issues and not enough sound processes to help solve the problems we face. I have always found that breaking problems down into their smallest parts we can find solutions which really work. Ask some questions and break down the answers.1. Are we using this farming land wisely? Cows are expensive to feed and care for and there are many pressures on Dairy Farmers. 2. The Badgers are part of the ecosystem and and have been around longer than humans. They are better parents, they are cleaner, they are more effective users of their environment than humans. Should we be killing something which we are not superior to, or should we be thinking about their value to the ecoystem? 3.With all our science we have no definitive answer to the causes of TB in cattle. We should not reach for the gun, rather we should put more funds into finding an answer which satisfies the farmers. They cannot stand any further prevarication by successive governments. They will kill the badgers or they will shoot themselves. Help the Badgers stay alive and help the farmers stay sane.”

“shoot the farmers,

they are killing us all with the pesticides, diseases, fertilizer, injected animals, and now horsemeat filled with antibiotics, and chemicals.
they then want to shoot badgers and chase foxes to exhaustion ,and best of all get massive subsidies from the tax payer, such as caps payments that amount to thousands every year.”