THE considerable amount of hysteria being whipped up by the anti-badger cull lobby is extremely frustrating to livestock farmers.

No doubt it is well meaning but it is based on statements that are simply not true. Statements like "the science is against badger culling', "there is no proof it will work", "vaccination is the answer" and "cattle spread TB more than badgers" are all completely false but are continually trotted out.

Now a section of objectors are resorting to blackmail and intimidation, which I don't think will impress fair-minded members of the public, and will probably only serve to harden the attitude of most farmers who don't readily submit to mob rule.

Most people don't know that countries which have been successful in controlling TB have had to deal with the reservoir of TB in wildlife. The USA, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland all now enjoy a very low level of the disease because they have done this.

It is surely common-sense that where you have disease, like TB, in two species it is never going to be eliminated if you only tackle it one species. The tragedy for us is that in the 1970s and 1980s TB was brought under control through badger culling in the UK but since it was made illegal in 1992, TB in cattle has escalated dramatically.

Badger culling has been proved to work. The statement that "badger culling can make TB spread more" is based on the perturbation effect which means badgers move further away if they are not caught. Surely this is clear proof that badgers are causing the problem if TB spreads as a result. The other thing it proves is that trapping badgers is not very effective. The Krebs trial was not able to prove much because well over half the badger traps were either damaged, stolen or interfered with.

The often-quoted statement "cattle spread TB far more than badgers" is just not true for two reasons. Firstly, cattle can only spread TB through coughing – they are not able to excrete it like badgers. Secondly, cattle with TB are removed and slaughtered in the early stages of the disease before it becomes very infectious. Badgers on the other hand can live a long time with TB and are not allowed to be slaughtered and therefore spread the disease much more than cattle.

This is why livestock farmers feel it is totally unfair and unreasonable that some people seem so concerned about killing badgers but don't seem to care about thousands of cattle being killed.

Vaccination may be of some help in the future but they say it will probably be another 10 years. Frankly we cannot afford to wait that long – the situation is too serious. TB has cost many livestock farmers thousands and thousands of pounds and there must come a point when the business become unsustainable.

It seems very strange that some people can get very emotional about losing some animals that they have probably never even seen, but don't seem to care about the emotional trauma for a farmer who has to have cattle which he sees every day suddenly having to be slaughtered. Farmers don't enjoy badgers being killed but they are very grateful that at last we have a government that is taking this terrible disease seriously.

– Livestock farmer.