ANDREW Linzey, Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, has called on the RSPCA to prosecute those currently slaughtering our badger population, since this is in contravention of the Bern Convention.

This criminal ‘cull’ was opposed in a letter last October, signed by more than30 leading scientists.

The Government’s own chief adviser, John Beddington, and its former chief adviser and President of the Royal Society, Lord Robert May, have also denounced it to be on purely scientific, rather than moral grounds.

Professor Bourne, of the Independent Scientific Group on Bovine TB, has denounced it, as has Lord Krebs, who was responsible for the previous 10-year cull.

The Farmers Guardian last week stated: “In a four-year study, more than 800 wild badgers in Gloucestershire were injected with the BCG vaccine.

“The key result was a 74 per cent reduction in the proportion of badgers testing positive to the antibody.”

However, the only reason farmers choose to shoot badgers, instead of vaccinating them, is that the former option is cheaper.

Even those who do not care about this massacre of our wildlife by dairy farmers, or their appalling treatment of their cows, should consider giving up milk out of self preservation.

The presence of listeria monocytogenes in milk gives rise to bovine mastitis which is common in dairy herds, and it is a serious threat to human health.

Farmers will make money any way they can.

These are the same people who caused BSE by feeding their stock on the corpses of other animals, converting herbivorous animals into carnivores and even cannibals in order to line their own pockets.

The latest abomination is the proposed introduction of GM cows producing human milk.

MARK PRITCHARD, Linkside Avenue, Oxford