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Please help us to protect Warwickshire's
badgers!
Badgers are a special and much loved part of
our natural heritage. But unfortunately, they innocently find
themselves at the centre of a major controversy over their part in
the spread of TB in cattle.
In the near future a pilot cull of badgers
is likely to be announced in some parts of England - as part of an
attempt to control the spread of the disease. The Wildlife Trusts
do not support a cull because, in our view, the scientific evidence
shows that killing badgers is not an effective way of halting the
spread of bovine TB - and in fact it can make the situation
worse.
That said, we do take the threat of TB in
cattle very seriously and agree that urgent action is required. We
understand the financial impact, emotional distress, disruption and
anxiety that an outbreak of TB has on farmers and their families.
It is a devastating disease which we all want to tackle: no-one
wants to see hundreds of TB infected cattle being killed
unnecessarily.
So whilst we disagree with a cull, the
Trust is keen to help farmers resolve the situation in a way that
avoids the need to slaughter either cattle or badgers.
That's why we're planning to vaccinate all of the badgers on our
reserves so that we can be sure they're not contributing to the
problem. It's difficult to estimate how many badgers we have on our
reserves but it is likely to be several hundred.
On top of that, if we have the resources,
we would like to be able to offer the option of vaccination to any
of our neighbours and other farmers around Coventry, Warwickshire
and Solihull who wish to volunteer to have the badgers on their
land vaccinated too.
We need your help to raise the
funds to:
 |
train staff and volunteers to
humanely trap badgers and inject the vaccine |
|
buy the equipment
required |
|
purchase the vaccine |
|
and continue the project over the
next three years |
The injection is safe and approved for use
in badgers - and recent research has shown that it is an effective
solution to the problem. The cost of the project is approximately
£51 per hectare and we need to address around 300 hectares of our
reserves.
Please help us to protect badgers and
cattle for the future by making a donation to our urgent appeal
today! Any contribution is significant no matter how small or
large.
Thank you for your support and for
helping Warwickshire's badgers