Animal lovers rally around the badger

WHILE THE countryside has taken up arms against thousands of hapless mink, conservationists have leapt into action to spare Britain's badgers, who are also facing the death sentence.

Britain's wildlife trusts aim to sabotage government plans for a "trial cull" of badgers - designed to limit the spread of TB - by forbidding the cull on their 2,300 nature reserves. They believe they can make it "almost impossible" for the cull, announced by agriculture ministers last week, to succeed.

In addition, the National Trust, Britain's biggest private landowner, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which owns another 250,000 acres, are considering whether to ban the cull on their lands, and The Hunt Saboteurs Association says it will try to frustrate the cull by releasing trapped badgers before they can be shot.

Last week, Jeff Rooker, minister of state for Agriculture, announced that 12,500 badgers would be killed over the next five years to curb the spread of TB in cattle, which has increased massively since 1990, and is hitting farmers already devastated by BSE.

Mr Rooker said that 30 areas, each of 60 square miles, would be set aside for the experiment in the disease "hot spots" in south-west England and the West Midlands.

All badgers will be killed in one third of the areas, all left alone in another third, and in the final third, they will be killed only after outbreaks of TB. The results will then be compared.

Focus, page 21