Gassing ruled out as a culling option

DEFRA has abandoned trials into the effectiveness and welfare implications of gassing badgers and definitively ruled the practice out as a method by which farmers could cull them.

Confirmation by Food and Farming Minister Lord Rooker that gassing, along with snaring, are not options if culling is sanctioned comes as a blow to groups of farmers in the South West putting together culling licences applications.

Farmers are adamant that gassing is the most effective, practical and welfare-friendly method of badger removal available to them and doubt whether the alternatives, trapping or shooting, could deliver the same disease control benefits.

Defra's Central Science Laboratory had been carrying out trials on gassing with carbon monoxide to ascertain whether it could be permitted as an option to cull badgers on animal welfare grounds.

However, Lord Rooker said the trials had now ceased because it had already been decided gassing was 'not going to be used anyway' as a means of badger removal. "We have ruled out gassing and ruled out snaring," he said.

He said the trials were not 'exactly 100 per cent successful' as the layout of some setts meant it was sometimes difficult to ensure gas reached into all parts.

"If it is going to be humane you have got to get to the corners. I don't think it was going work," he said.

He accepted this would be a problem for farmers if culling licences were issued, but insisted culling was 'never going to be a free for all'.

"It's got to be reasonable. If there is a set of rules made, it is up farmers to decide if they want to operate within them," he said.