Pembrokeshire Badger cull halted after appeal

A controversial cull of around 1,500 badgers in south-west Wales has been halted after protestors won their legal challenge to stop it.

The Badger Trust appealed against Welsh Assembly Government plans for a trial cull to reduce TB within cattle.

The trust had questioned the cull's effectiveness, though farmers losing diseased stock wanted action.

Three law lords announced the trust's appeal against a judicial review was successful and quashed the order.

Tha assembly government are due to respond.

Plans for a pilot cull of badgers within a 288 sq km (111 sq miles) area of south-west Wales were outlined in September 2008.

The go-ahead was given in January.

The exact area of the proposed cull was not given; but it was known to lie mostly in north Pembrokeshire, extending into Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.

More than half the TB compensation paid out across Wales goes to farmers in the area.

Under the proposed five year cull, badgers were to be trapped in cages and shot.

Anti-cull protesters, led by the Badger Trust, argued it had not yet been scientifically proven that badgers are implicated in the transmission of TB within cattle and it doubts a cull would help eradicate the disease.

On 11 June, the trust won leave to appeal against the outcome of a judicial review that backed the assembly government's plans.

On Tuesday, their appeal was granted.

Trial zones

In England, Defra, the UK government department responsible for rural affairs, has begun trialling a programme designed to stop the spread of TB within cattle by vaccinating badgers.

Six trial zones for vaccinating were identified but only one remains, near Stroud, Gloucestershire.

The first badgers there were vaccinated and released on 5 July.The cull was one measure of many proposed, as compensation payments to farmers cost taxpayers £24m last year alone.