MADAM, I feel compelled to respond to the letter in last week's edition of The Gazette concerning The Government policy of allowing a cull of badgers in an attempt to control the increasing problem of Bovine Tuberculosis in cattle.

As I understand it, the precise boundaries of the two pilot areas in question are being kept secret by DEFRA to prevent the more extreme elements of the animal rights movement from having a target to aim at. Very sensible, I say. The pilot project will involve qualified professional marksmen shooting badgers at close range in a controlled environment with no risk whatsoever to the public or non-target animals, this being despite considerable scare mongering to the contrary by certain elements of the anti-cull campaign.

I totally respect the rights of others to have their opinion and do understand that badgers are an iconic species which many readers will be fond of. However, it is a sad fact that a significant number of badgers in areas with a high prevalence of bovine TB (such as Gloucestershire and Herefordshire) will be infected with TB and will have a part to play in the vicious cycle of infection between cattle and badgers. The proposed pilot badger control areas make use of hard boundaries to overcome what has been termed the "perturbation" effect and, after intensively studying of all of the science available, the government's chief scientific advisor has recommended that licences be issued by Natural England for the control of badgers to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. It is also worth mentioning that this policy of badger control is supported by The British Veterinary Association and The British Cattle Veterinary Association.

The UK cattle farming industry complies with some of the most stringent bio-security, disease testing and animal movement restrictions anywhere in the world yet still suffers from the expanding menace of TB because the wildlife reservoir and vector (badgers) has no control and has increased significantly in number in the last 30 years. Cattle farmers very much look forward to the day where healthy cattle and healthy badgers can once again share the same space and hope that science will one day deliver this solution but, for now, that is a Utopian dream and the sad reality is that over 30,000 infected cattle were slaughtered as part of the fight against TB last year and not a single infected badger. It is estimated that the cost of bovine TB controls to the tax payer will be in excess of £1 billion over the next ten years if nothing is done to tackle the problem.

Badger vaccination is often proposed as a humane alternative to culling badgers. This unproven tactic costs an estimated £2,250 per square kilometre, per annum, and has to be repeated every year. That equates to nearly £750,000 per annum for the West Gloucestershire cull area alone and would be tens, if not hundreds, of millions of pounds per annum if carried out across the ever expanding TB infected areas of the South West and West Midlands. Vaccination of badgers is also completely ineffective if the creature already has the disease which government data suggests up to 30% in TB hotspot areas do. I wonder if Brian May or the RSPCA would have pockets deep enough to bank roll such an expensive undertaking, even if it did work?

We look forward to a cattle vaccine and EU approval for this, in the meantime this is still many years away and we simply must take decisive action now to try and get this awful disease back under control for the sake of the cows, badgers, hard working farmers, tax payers and the local environment which would be an awful lot poorer if it did not have our beautiful Hereford Cattle grazing in it.

Name and address supplied.