Welsh Day of Action! Saturday, September 20 - read the report here.

Also, find out what else you can do to help the badgers here!

Public enemy No.1?
 
 
  Persecuted and trapped: cages will litter the Welsh countryside if the 'cull' goes ahead

Badgers are harmless, loved, unique and secretive. Yet they face illegal trapping, baiting with dogs and 50,000 die on the roads each year in Britain. Now they face their biggest threat yet – the Welsh dairy industry!

Whilst English badgers have escaped an official 'cull' because of pressure from people like you, badgers in Wales are still being accused by farmers of being the main culprits in spreading bovine TB. The real culprits are farming practices so intense that dairy cows face numerous infections and rarely survive beyond five years old. TB tests are often inaccurate, allowing disease carriers to reinfect their herd or to be transported around the UK, infecting new herds.

The Welsh Assembly has agreed to a ‘cull’, ignoring the 10 year study by top scientists which established that badger ‘culling’ will not control TB in cattle. It means thousands of animals will be cruelly killed to no purpose – other than mollifying farmers who refuse to change their ways. Badgers could be wiped from certain areas of Wales in a slaughter that may last until the 2030s.

Permanent stress

A dairy cow’s babies are taken away so humans can have her milk. Many male calves are shot shortly after birth! Made pregnant again, she has to feed herself, her foetus and produce up to 120 pints of milk a day. Is it any wonder her immune system is in shreds?

Save badgers... and cows!

The surest way to save badgers now and in the future is to stop buying meat and dairy. The bonus is that dairy cows will no longer live in pain, you’re likely to improve your health and you will be doing the single most important thing to protect the environment.

National Rally for the Badgers! Cardiff June 28 2008 - read how the day went here!

Read about the Rally for Badgers in North Wales - July 26 2008 - here!
 

 

 
 

"The culling of badgers is absolutely obscene. The largest ever study found that it would make things things worse not better, yet they still push ahead towards the meaningless destruction of our wildlife. Please help Viva! stop this madness by ending the cull and helping people give up the very things that are at the root of it: meat and dairy."
TV wildlife presenter and Viva! patron Wendy Turner-Webster
 

“I'm so thrilled to hear that the proposed extermination of this country's Badgers has been scrapped. I congratulate Hilary Benn on a brave and humane decision. And I am encouraged by the rejection of what I regard as a disgracefully scientifically unsound report by ex chief scientific advisor to the Government, Sir David King.

“The Farming community must now logically look to improvements in their own methods to control TB in Cattle. We can only hope that this leads to long-term improvements in the way farm animals are treated; it is long overdue.

“Just for the sake of making more money out of what some of us eat (not me) ... these people wanted to exterminate a whole population of innocent wild animals who have as much right to live in this land as we humans do.”
Brian May from Queen

“Now farmers will realise the strength of the science and will recognise that culling has no part to play. They should now objectively, alongside government, consider the cattle control elements that we all know are absolutely essential as outlined in our report.”
Professor John Bourne, chairman of the Independent Scientific Group

"Culling badgers is historically known to be totally ineffective in stopping bovine TB. Northern Ireland has proved that the most effective procedures are strict cattle controls and no culling. We should all follow their lead- It works!"
Jenny Seagrove

“We must not make badgers scapegoats for bovine TB”.
Joanna Lumley

“How can we condemn a protected species to death when the reasons for doing so have been discredited by valid scientific evidence? Badger culling is utterly barbaric and pointless. Please support Viva! in their fight to stop this needless massacre of our precious wildlife.”
Twiggy

“Deep down anyone with common sense knows that killing animals is wrong, but what makes the idea of culling badgers even more sinister is that it’s being done in order to cover up bad farming practices and lazy testing methods. I don’t want to stand by knowing that these great creatures are suffering and being killed, but I also don’t want to see a time in the future when we look back and wonder how we let another group of our animals disappeared from our country.

I say no to this or any other badger cull and I urge all caring people to do the same. Get rid of ignorance, not badgers.”
Benjamin Zephaniah

“I totally support Viva! in their campaign to stop the badger cull which is both obscene and unnecessary since top scientists say it will only make the spread of TB in cattle worse.”
Rose Elliot


Viva! Vegetarians International Voice for Animals
8 York Court, Wilder Street, Bristol BS2 8QH, UK
T: 0117 944 1000 F: 0117 924 4646 E: info@viva.org.uk