Plans to kill badgers, in a misguided attempt to eradicate bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle, could begin in England very soon.

At least seven out of every ten badgers will be shot across two areas, each approximately the size of the Isle of Wight, over a six week period. If the full policy is rolled out it could affect up to forty similar sized areas across England and result in the deaths of up to 130,000 badgers.

The scale of the killing could lead to the disappearance of badgers from many local areas. Badger numbers across England could be reduced by a third, and across the south west by around 50 per cent.

Many thousands of badgers could be injured and left to suffer a slow and painful death.

HSI UK believes that the policy is wrong: it will not help farmers, it will not help cattle, but it will decimate our badger populations.

Killing badgers is not the solution. Please join us and tell Prime Minister David Cameron: Listen to the science and Kill the Cull, Not the Badgers.

To David Cameron

Dear Prime Minister,

Killing Badgers is Not the Solution -- Kill the Cull, not the Badgers

[Your comments will be inserted here.]

Your government's plans to license the shooting of many tens of thousands of badgers will not solve the problem of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. What it will do is decimate our badger populations, and cause untold suffering to many thousands of individual badgers.

Please, listen to the scientists who conducted the largest ever study into the issue, the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), who concluded that "badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain".

Killing badgers is not the solution. It will not help farmers, and it will not help cattle. All efforts must be focussed on reducing cattle-to-cattle transmission and on producing viable vaccines for both cattle and badgers.

Focus on the science and on the true cause of this problem: Kill the Cull, Not the Badgers.

Sincerely,
[Your name here]