WE, the West Wales Badger Group, were invited to speak at the Council of Europe Bern Convention in Strasbourg on December 2, 1998, concerning the plight of the badger in the UK.

The reason we were invited to the Bern Convention was to ask the Standing Committee open a file to investigate the Bovine TB situation in the United Kingdom.

The UK Government representative proceeded to denigrate the badgers in every aspect. Sweden told the Standing Committee how they had suffered a horrendous Bovine TB breakdown in their national herd. The problem was cattle to cattle and the British Government should not be blaming and killing badgers.

Many other countries voiced the same opposition to the killing of the badgers in the UK. The Czech Republic put a motion forward, that there should be no culling of badgers in the UK for one year, while the British Government explore other means of controlling Bovine TB without slaughtering badgers.

The vote was unanimous in favour of the motion to open a file; also the Czech Republic motion was accepted by all the countries apart from the UK.

The British Government have completely ignored the rules of the Bern Convention by continuing to slaughter badgers, and letting it be known that they are intending to carry on with the slaughter for at least two years.

As the UK are contracting members to the Convention they may now be asked to leave the Convention. We would like to know which way the British Government is going to proceed.

Mr A Hands

Group Lobbyist

West Wales Badger Group

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