Agency by William Gibson 
As she headed out on the first wildlife badger patrols of the culling season, an Alsager animal welfare campaigner has blasted the Government for not banning the practice now and not in five years.
Badger culling, to prevent the spread of bovine TB in cattle, will be phased out by 2029, it was announced last week.
But Jane Smith, deputy leader of the Animal Welfare Party, said she was “disappointed” that the Labour government will not stop the mass killings sooner, because it had promised to introduce a ban in its last two general election manifestos.
The phasing out announcement said that some culls under existing licences will continue until 2026 but it was unlikely that new ones would be granted.
The Government said that the new strategy will mark a “significant step-change” in approach to tackling the devastating disease, “driving down” TB rates and saving farmers’ livelihoods and businesses. It will use a “data-led and scientific approach” to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament.
However, Mrs Smith, a former Animal Welfare Party representative on Alsager Town Council, said the Government’s announcement was “too little too late” pointing to the recent issuing of a new culling licence in Cumbria.
She told the “Chronicle”: “In their last two general election manifestos Labour has promised to end badger culls. The big disappointment is that the Labour Government will honour existing licenses, which means that badgers can be killed up to 2029.
“The Government has been seen to be fast-moving in recent weeks. We’ve seen how quick it opened the court system following the riots.
“It would be well within the Government’s means to ensure that the badger cull ends now.”
Appeasement
Mrs Smith said Sir Keir Starmer’s Government was also “probably trying to somehow appease” the conservation and wildlife lobby “by saying we will end the cull”.
She has already been out locally with the Wounded Badger Patrol, a group that monitors the culling process while attempting to prevent the killing of badgers at the same time.
“Badgers are an iconic mammal in this country that have survived in this area since the Ice Age,” said Mrs Smith, who leads the patrols in Staffordshire and Cheshire.
She said the patrols, which go out at night when the culling take place, are “peaceful and lawful actions” by people “who want to do more than sign a petition or write to their MP”.
Mrs Smith added that the “big disappointment” was that a lot of people might have voted for Labour at the general election because the party promised to end badger culling.
“But now we face another five years of badgers being killed locally,” she added.
Mrs Smith also believed the Government was attempting to appease landowners and farmers, although she pointed out that not all were in favour of culling.
She said Labour “should take a long hard look at themselves”, referring to its promise to end badger cull in its last two election manifestos, which she said it “made a huge play about”.
Mrs Smith, who stood as a candidate for the Animal Welfare Party in the Congleton constituency during the 2019 general election recalled: “I remember the Labour candidate had a cuddly badger in front of her on the table during the hustings at Congleton Town Hall. They made a very big thing about the badger cull locally.”
(Photo: Sergey Anatolievich Pristyazhnyuk).
