WHEN I saw ‘Watson under fire for cruel bTb comments’ in your Pembrokeshire Farmer sister paper, I tended to see both sides of the argument.

The farmers no doubt are suffering when some are ‘in perpetual TB infection’ but some people outside the farming world often think ‘should perpetual TB infection farms be dairy farms at all?’.

However when the farmer Steve Evans on Spittal Cross Farm Spittal in this article stated that he disputed the Welsh Government’s ban on badger culling and that there is no scientific evidence to support it, when that approach had been successful in England, he failed to see the other side of this argument.

The senseless badger cull in England is now in its 10th year with over 210,000 badgers shot (badgertrust.org.uk). Science says that there is no evidence that badger culling has had any impact in reducing bovine TB (Vet Record, March 2022).

In an extraordinary development Defra has admitted using incorrect data in their rebuttal to the scientific paper (badgertrust.org.uk/defra-admits-using-incorrect-data).Wales is doing better in eradicating bovine TB than England and is respecting wildlife into the bargain.

Wales has found and proved that badger are not the source of bTB infection, Mr Evans is in fact ignoring scientific data.

It is quite obvious that England should be following Wales’s lead, not the other way around which he is disputing.

Finally it should be remembered that when Professor John Bourne, Chairman of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB, submitted his TB report he said this:

“I think the most interesting observation was made to me by a senior politician – Fine John, we accept your science, but we have to offer farmers a carrot. And the only carrot we can possibly give them is culling badgers.” (bovinetb.co.uk/article.php?)

Michael Sharratt MSc

Whitland

Carmarthenshire