BADGERS should not be culled to combat the spread of TB, a leading Oxford zoologist has insisted.

Former Government chief scientific adviser Lord May of Oxford questioned the merits of a proposed badger cull which is designed to protect cattle from bovine tuberculosis.

The disease affects more than 5,000 farms and six per cent of cattle herds across the country. Badgers catch TB from cattle, which they then spread to other herds.

Officials estimate that long-term intensive culling would lead to a 16 per cent reduction of TB in cattle over a nine-year period.

Speaking in the House of Lords earlier this month, Farming Minister Lord Henley stated scientific advice was “quite clear” that badger culling could be effective.

But Lord May, a Fellow of Oxford University’s Merton College and a professor in the department of zoology, disputed the minister’s claim.

He said: “In the initial several years after beginning killing badgers in a defined region things get worse, and if culling is maintained over a large area year-in- year-out, control of bovine TB is possible, but evidence suggests that the costs outweigh the benefits.”

Penny Little of Protect our Wild Animals, based in Great Hasely, welcomed Lord May’s intervention.

She said: “We are whole-heartedly opposed to culling and are fed up with poor badgers being used as scapegoats.

“I think it is appalling that this country continues to pick on innocent animals. It is cruel and allows farmers to catch badgers in a case and shoot them or to ‘free shoot’ them.

“When are we going to start acting like a civilized society?

“Science has proved that culling is not the answer.

“Many people think that vaccination is the way to treat this issue.”

Ms Little suggested that intensive farming may be to blame for the increase of TB and that moving cattle around causes the animals stress which leads to lower immunity to infections and diseases.

Miles Saunders, who owns a cattle farm in Faringdon, lost 107 cattle to bovine TB three years ago and feels that badger culling is a “good idea”

He said “In the 1970s TB in cattle was pretty much eliminated. When the ban on harming badgers was introduced in the 1980s things changed quickly.”