A LEADING zoologist and broadcaster has slammed the Goverment’s badger cull aimed at tackling bovine tuberculosis.

Chris Packham, best known for his television programmes including the BBC's Springwatch and Autumnwatch, suggested poor farm hygiene was the main cause of bovine tuberculosis.

He spoke to The Advertiser before appearing at the Ludlow Assembly Rooms in a show where he displayed his many photographs and shared his experience of conservation.

“If I thought the badger cull would deal with the problem of bovine TB then I would reluctantly say get on with it but it will not,” said Chris Packham, who added the controversial mass killing could make things worse.

“We have spent £1million killing 11,000 badgers. I accept that badgers carry bovine TB but so do deer and other animals.

“The main problem is cattle to cattle contamination and poor farm hygiene which is very bad in this country.”

He said that badgers had to die in their thousands as scapegoats for an issue that he accepted was a problem for hard pressed farmers.

The naturalist believes that the solution lies in a TB vaccine and the removal of a regulation that bans the sale of British meat in Europe where cattle have been vaccinated.

He said that this regulation cost British farmers £465 million a year.

Mr Packham has also blamed agricultural practices and intensive farming for the damage to the natural environment through the destruction of habitat.

Despite his cheerful television manner Mr Packham is distinctly down beat about the conservation battle in this country. “I do not believe that we are holding our own,” he said.

The broadcaster said there were notable success stories like the recovery of the red kite that is now thriving but only a few years ago had been reduced to just a handful of breeding pairs hanging on in the Shropshire and Welsh Hills.

He said the return of otters, largely because of improvement in river quality was another bit of good news, but overall the outlook was poor.

Mr Packham says he has sympathy for farmers for being put in an impossible position by the never ending drive for ‘cheap food’ with the supermarkets making it almost impossible for them to make a living.

“I would like to see farmers compensated to conservation activities such as preserving habitat. It happens in other countries so why not here?,”

said Mr Packham.

Ludlow MP Philip Dunne , who has run a farm on the Shropshire/Wales border since 1987 defended local farmers, and is backing the badger cull on a trial basis.

“Bovine TB is causing immense damage and disruption to the fabric of our livestock industry and costing £100 million to the taxpayer as compensation for the thousands of cattle slaughtered each year,”

said Mr Dunne. “This is over and above the suffering caused to cattle and wildlife that carry this disease.

“It is an eradicable disease and has happened in this other countries.

“In no case has this happened without tackling the reservoir of disease in the wildlife population as well as in cattle.

“I support the mix of measures to finally get to grips with this terrible disease before it infects the whole country.

“So I support the proposed badger cull in the pilot hotspot areas as well as investing in future vaccination methodologies.

I am considering an experimental badger vaccination programme on my farm where we have had three outbreaks of bovine TB in recent years.”