POLICE patrols were stepped up across West Somerset last week as the district’s third controversial badger cull got underway.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed the cull had started in Somerset, Gloucestershire and in a new pilot area in Dorset.

Shooters have been given a target to kill a minimum of 55 badgers in West Somerset and up to a maximum of 524.

Last year, 341 badgers were shot in the district.

The Government has ordered the pilot culls in an attempt to test whether shooting free-running badgers was an effective, humane and safe method of controlling badger numbers.

Both ministers and the National Farmers’ Union believe culling badgers will curb TB in cattle.

Opponents maintain culling will increase the spread of the disease and want to see a vaccination programme used instead.

After the first year of the badger cull, an independent panel of experts concluded that shooting badgers was not humane.

The panel also believed that controlled shooting could not deliver the level of culling needed to bring about a reduction of TB in cattle.

Figures released by anti-cull campaigners from the Badger Trust showed that culling badgers in Gloucestershire and Somerset had already cost taxpayers nearly £16.8m.

The trust said the figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, amounted to £6,775 for every badger killed in the cull in the last two years.

Dominic Dyer, head of the Badger Trust, said: “Not only is the badger cull a disastrous failure on scientific and animal welfare grounds, it is also becoming an unacceptable burden on the taxpayer.”

But Defra maintains farmers are footing the bulk of the costs, with the Government picking up the bill for policing the culls and monitoring protocols in the first year.

The pilot culls are backed by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), which maintains that culling is more cost effective than the millions of pounds lost in the farming industry as a result of TB.

Previously, the NFU has claimed TB rates have plummeted on members’ farms inside the badger cull zone since the controversial policy was introduced.

Union president Meurig Raymond told the NFU’s annual conference that TB incidence on farms in the West Somerset pilot area had decreased from 34 per cent to 11 per cent over the past two years.

But Defra has refused to release official TB data until after the four-year pilot cull has been completed.

A spokesman told the Free Press the NFU claims were based on its own members’ experiences and no official figures would be released.

No figures have been made available for instances of TB on farms around the edge of the cull zone either, as many opponents fear the cull could lead to the spread of the disease as badgers could be dispersed by the shooting.