Sentences with phrase «pilot culls»

The media had some fun last week following the statement from the environment secretary Owen Paterson that the badgers had «moved the goal posts», triggering an extension of the pilot culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire.

This brings us to the key issue of the overall costs of the pilot culls and a national rollout programme for badger culling.

In terms of effectiveness, we have now learned from Freedom of Information requests that in the initial six weeks of the pilot culls, only 24 % of the estimated badger population in Gloucestershire and Somerset were killed by free shooting.

Since the end of the pilot culls, Owen Paterson has been desperately trying to keep the true cost from MPs the media and wider public.

This was the key reason why Defra would not test any of the badgers killed during the pilot culls for TB, as they knew the results would show a very low level of disease.

The vast majority of badgers killed in both pilot culls were by government employed trap teams, with higher costs than the Welsh government vaccination programme.

They confirmed that following the collapse of the pilot cull last year, many farmers lost confidence in the government's ability to deliver a legal culling programme against strong public opposition and decided to take the law into their own hands and illegally gas badgers on their farms.

He said: «Now that the cull company is seeing fewer badgers on the ground I agree with the decision to stop the pilot cull for this year and I pay tribute to all those who in the face of provocation have worked so hard.

Within the next two weeks, it will likely become the first of hundreds to be shot dead as part of a pilot cull licensed by the UK government to curb the spread of bovine tuberculosis to cattle — even though badgers are legally protected.

He sees problems with the new conclusions: «The pilot cull is flawed because it aims to remove 70 per cent of badgers without an accurate estimate of the starting number.»

Small is relieved that the pilot cull is set to go ahead, although his farm lies outside both of the proposed field - trial areas.

Although glad that the pilot cull is likely to proceed, Small says it's a shame that things weren't dealt with long ago.

Not exact matches

It's now widely anticipated that the independent expert panel reviewing the badger cull pilots will deliver a report which is very critical of the policy on cost and effectiveness grounds.

The upcoming badger cull pilot taking place in two pilot areas in West Gloucestershire and West Somerset will last for six weeks and will be repeated annually for four years.

«The pilots are being carried out to test the chosen method of culling through free shooting,» the department said in a statement in February.

In her first session at the despatch box 48 hours after joining the Cabinet, Truss said she had decided to progress with the government's two culling pilots this autumn after speaking with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs» (Defra) scientific adviser.

«We don't need any more trials or pilots — the belief that badger culling represents an effective solution to the problem of TB in cattle has already been disproven.»

During a cull, a helicopter pilot herds an elephant family into a tight bunch.

Following the workshop, pledges were made to stop culling dogs in pilot project townships.

The Badger Trust argued that Defra had given an unequivocal assurance that it would keep an independent expert panel (IEP) in place, and would not extend the cull beyond two pilot areas unless the IEP concluded it was safe, effective and humane to do so.