THE Forest of Dean Badger patrol says the government-backed experimental slaughter of badgers has begun on land near Westbury-on-Severn.

Spokesman Tracey Lambert said: "We were aware that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food were in the area but needed to confirm that the culling was about to begin.

"Confirmation came with the discovery of baited traps at a badger sett in the Rodley area."

She said the trapping was part of a "futile" attempt by the government to see if killing badgers would help farmers combat the problem of bovine tuberculosis.

"This is in spite of the evidence of over 25 years of killing badgers on affected farms," she said.

"In this time more than 3,000 badgers have been killed. Some 80 per cent of these were healthy animals and of the 20 per cent which did carry the (TB) bacterium, very few were infectious.

"In this time TB has continued to increase in pockets of the national dairy herd. MAFF have found an easy scapegoat in the badger."