Badger Cull - email your MP

One email from one constituent is important, a handful from several shows it's an issue and a dozen or more could indicate that it's something requiring more urgent action.

Add your voice to the mix and help us achieve positive action for badgers.

Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is calling upon the Government to stop issuing badger cull licences with immediate effect.

Recent Government proposals suggested an end to granting cull licenses in 2022, but this could still result in another 130,000 badgers being killed over the next four years.

As cull licences last up to four years, the culling of badgers is likely not to end until at least 2026. Over this period, 12,000 more badgers could be culled in Staffordshire and 130,000 UK-wide killed needlessly. 2,791 Staffordshire badgers were culled under the DEFRA licence in 2020.

140,000 badgers already culled, and the possibility of that total reaching 200,000 by the end of 2021. In Staffordshire, 5,000 more badgers could be killed this year alone.

Based on their analysis of the consultation, The Wildlife Trusts are calling on the Government to:

1. Stop issuing badger cull licences immediately. This will bring an end to the badger cull sooner than proposed, saving tens of thousands of badgers.

2. Implement a cattle vaccine. Cattle vaccination offers the best long-term way to reduce bovine TB in the cattle population.

3. Review how cattle are transported around the country and ensure measures are in place to prevent infection spread from cattle to cattle.

4. Fast track the transition from culling to badger vaccination

You can find out more about our campaign against the Badger Cull here and our Badger Appeal here we hope you agree with our aims and are able to write to your MP specifically about this. 

The Trust believes culling badgers is not the answer and are passionate in our campaign to oppose the cull. Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is very conscious of the hardship that bovine tuberculosis (bTB) causes in the farming community and the need to find the right mechanisms to control the disease. However, we believe that a badger cull is not the answer.

Research based on official data and produced by a group of leading vets and academics, shows that confirmed incidents of bovine TB in the Gloucestershire, the original culling pilot area where culling started six years ago, rose by 130% in 2018 compared with the previous year.

In 2020 the government announced that they were planning to invest in a cattle vaccine and to phase out the culling by 2025 and said cull licenses will be stopped in 2022 but this could still result in the cull continuing even further now until 2026. We are calling on an immediate end to the ineffective culling of badgers who are a protected species. 

Despite the announcements from Government, we have yet to see any real progress from them outlining concrete plans and proposals, and progress appears slow. Time is of the essence here. We want an immediate end to the cull and a rapid investment in a cattle-to-cattle vaccine with badger vaccinations taking priority in the meantime. 

An email from you to your MP enables your voice to be heard and opposing the badger cull helps to raise the profile of this cause with your representative in government.