NEARLY a quarter of a million pounds has been spent on policing the highly-controversial badger cull in Oxfordshire and the surrounding areas in just one year.
A Freedom of Information request to Thames Valley Police reveals that £216,856 was spent in 2020 on policing the killings in the Thames Valley Police area.
The figure follows reports that a consultation has been launched by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the public’s views on the culls to prevent the spread of bovine TB – which have been condemned as cruel, unnecessary and even counterproductive by wildlife experts and many scientists, landowners and local authorities.
The Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) – a voluntary organisation in the region that protects local wildlife – warned that thousands of healthy badgers could be killed if government plans to extend the controversial cull to 2028 are approved.
The Government launched the eight-week consultation on January 27 on measures to reach bovine TB-free status in England by 2038.
The Oxfordshire Badger Group is running a badger vaccination programme. Such schemes have proved successful around the country. A spokesperson said the money spent policing the cull could have been used elsewhere, adding: “Oxfordshire Badger group feels that the cost of the badger cull is a huge waste of public money.
“If the Government were committed to ending the culls as they have said they were, they would be investing in OBG’s badger vaccination programme and those run by badger groups all over the country.
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“It is also very disappointing that the Government is inviting expressions of interest from farmers to cull in new parts of Oxfordshire when OBG’s and BBOWT’S vaccination projects are already in place.”
A curious badger. Picture: James Stewart
When OBG questioned DEFRA about the number of badgers tested for TB in the county in 2020 as part of the cull, the organisation revealed that the number was zero.
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A DEFRA spokesman said: “No badgers were tested for TB in Oxfordshire as we do not routinely carry out postmortem examinations on badgers removed in licensed culling operations.”
The consultation ends on Wednesday. See consult.defra.gov.uk/bovine-tb-2020/eradication-of-btb-england/
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