Research at a secret location in Devon may
help eradicate bovine tuberculosis without a single badger being killed, says
leading vet
Sunday 15 October 2017 00.04 BST
A pretty stone farmhouse sits in a bucolic
green valley, surrounded by airy cowsheds. It looks like a timeless west
country scene but is actually a pioneering farm, where cutting-edge science is
helping to solve the hugely controversial, multimillion-pound problem of bovine
tuberculosis (bTB).
As an expanded badger cull gets under way
this autumn, in
which 33,500 animals will be killed to help stop the spread of the
disease, a leading vet, Dick Sibley, believes this Devon farm demonstrates a
way to eradicate the disease in cattle – without slaughtering any badgers.
Sibley’s trial, at a secret location, was
halted earlier this year when two new tests to better identify bTB in cattle
were deemed illegal. But government regulators have now given the vet
permission to continue. His work is backed by rock star-turned-activist Brian
May, whose Save Me Trust last
week began a four-year programme of vaccinating badgers at the farm against
bTB.
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