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		Save our cattle! Wednesday, 1st March 2006 East Midlands MEP, Roger Helmer, is today up in arms over a campaign by the RSPCA (of which he is a member) against badger culling, stating that the campaign represents a real threat to farmers, cattle, and in the long run to the badger population too. There is extensive evidence that the UK's badger population is a repository of bovine TB, and infects and re-infects dairy and beef cattle wherever there are diseased badgers. By the RSPCA's own admission, more than 10% of English badgers are infected. The government is looking at a culling programme in an attempt to reduce the incidence of bovine TB, which is spreading across the UK, and which in 2003-04 alone cost the taxpayer £88 million in compensation for animals that had to be destroyed. An extensive testing programme in Ireland has clearly demonstrated that culling badgers controls the disease. Yet RSPCA advertisements and press statements are claiming the opposite -- that tests in the UK show that culling is ineffective or even increases the incidence of the disease. Mr Helmer believes the RSPCA is being deliberately misleading. The only circumstances in which culling can spread disease is when it is done on a very small scale and so drives some diseased badgers to new and previously disease-free areas. The test results are not an argument against culling -- they are an argument for more determined and widespread culling. He argues that British farmers have suffered very serious damage from a series of disease events, and he condemns the protests of animal rights activists who deny the clear link between badgers and bovine TB. Speaking today, Mr Helmer said: "I am horrified that the RSPCA is bending the facts in this way, and getting emotive over the fate of the badgers while apparently being entirely indifferent to the suffering of infected cattle. "No one wants to lose the badger from the English countryside, but in our crowded island, numbers have to be controlled for bio-security reasons. Those campaign groups claiming to speak for badgers are, in reality, calling for more sick cattle and more sick badgers too. A well-planned culling programme would benefit both the national herd and the long-term health of our badgers".