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The method of controlled shooting has never been tested and we have serious welfare concerns. Badger populations could be reduced by 70 per cent, and as the cull cannot be selective, many of the badgers killed will be healthy. The League has teamed up with the RSPCA and many other like-minded organisations to oppose this cull, but we need your help. The trials can only be carried out if 70 per cent of the land in the two areas has been signed up to the cull. We are asking farmers and landowners to sign our declaration to Natural England and the government to state that they will not permit the badger cull trials on their land.
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| If you are a farmer of landowner in either the west Somerset or west Gloucestershire area then please sign our declaration. Or, if you want to help please get in touch with our campaigns team or consider donating to the campaign. Thanks for your support  Joe Duckworth Chief Executive P.S. Please donate what you can to our urgent campaign. |
I manage my small farm without killing any wildlife whatsoever. We have badgers, deer, foxes hares and all sorts of wildlife. Deer can be a problem when they congregate because they can trash freshly coppiced areas. This is a well known fact. So I regularly access my property with my collie dogs. The dogs flush deer out and occasionally chase them. The problem is that my advice both from defra and the police is that this i s now illegal under the Hunting Act unless I shoot them. Flushing out and then shooting wild deer is one of the forms of hunting allowed.
Mr Duckworth’s organisation have insisted that this is ‘humane pest control’ However if as he says shooting free running badgers is cruel because of a high wounding rate then surely shooting deer literally running from my dogs would be far crueller than allowing them to inevitably escape as I do now?
It seems to me that the only reason that LACS support gunning down flushed deer isd a political one and nothing to do with animal welfare. People like myself who use non lethal dispersal should not be criminalised by badly drafted law and Mr Duckworth should abide by the principles of animal welfare and sound nature conservation rather than political expediency.