In an interview that went out to over 1 million viewers on BBC1 national television, ARAN's John Carmody spoke about the wreckless plans to slaughter tens of thousands of badgers in a proposed badger cull that has been going on since the 1970's with little or no effect on the spread of tuberculosis. ARAN condemns the announcement by Minister for Agriculture, Caroline Spelman, who made the case for the slaughter of badgers by free-shooting in two large-scale “pilot studies” to be conducted next year in parts of England badly affected by bovine tuberculosis, before being rolled out. The slaughter of badgers as a means of controlling bovine TB has been widely criticised by scientists and conservation experts including Sir David Attenborough. and Professor Lord Krebs amongst others. Click here to see the interview.

There is substantial scientific evidence that badger culls will have little impact on Bovine tuberculosis. In
1997 Lord Krebs conducted a review of badgers and the disease, resulting in a trial cull (the Randomised Badger Culling Trial) which took place over several years at a cost to the taxpayer of at least £50 million. The results of the cull were published by the Independent Scientific Group in 2008, which concluded that “badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain” . Lord Krebs, now Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, has since criticised culling, stating “I do not think culling is an effective policy.” Most recently in July 2011 a study by the Medical Research Council said that localised badger culling can more than double the risk of tuberculosis infecting cattle. In September 2010, DEFRA launched a public consultation on a badger cull, which closed in December 2010. ARAN has backed calls from UK animal protection groups for the UK government to publish the results of a government consultation, but they have so far refused.

OTHER CAMPAIGN NEWS FROM OCTOBER 2011

In other campaign news, we spoke out against the careless killing of chickens in Northern Ireland in the Belfast Telegraph in relation to teenagers pulling the heads off live chickens and have appealed to local schools in the area to take up our humane educational course free of charge. Germany's Bravo Magazine ran a huge article along with our Jedward 'Adopt, Don't Buy Ad' which goes out to tens of thousands of german readers, again spreading the word about adopting animals and never buying. The Irish Daily Star contacted ARAN about our campaign against Dublin Zoo and our investigation into the miserable conditions the animals' we forced to live in until the zoo recently opened a brand new living environment for the animals which will give them some decent living conditions, but ARAN warned that our campaign against captivity in zoo's and beyond will continue. Dublin's 98FM again contacted ARAN for comment on our campaigns work, again giving us a huge platform to speak about our campaigns. Cork FM Community Radio will feature two ARAN representatives on Saturday October 22nd to speak about our campaigns.

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