The blog on The Spectator website looks behind the headlines and poses the question:
"So what, exactly, were they [anti-cull campaigners] protesting about? Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) is currently the greatest threat to British cattle farmers, as the number of affected cattle has risen drastically in the UK over the last 25 years. According to Defra:
‘The number of new cases has doubled every nine years. Last year TB led to the slaughter of 26,000 cattle in England at a cost of nearly £100 million. In the last ten years bovine TB has cost the taxpayer £500 million.’"
You can read the full blog post 'Is vaccination a workable alternative to a badger cull?' which correctly identifies that a cattle vaccine is illegal under EU law. At the same time badger vaccination has proved to be difficult and expensive to administer and doesn’t work on animals which are already infected. Read our page about a bovine TB vaccine for more information.