SIR — I would like to thank all those dedicated people, particularly those coming from other parts of the country, who are joining our local badger night patrol.

Most of these people have full-time responsible jobs but are prepared to sacrifice their free time to walk in the countryside well into the night to try to save the life of a badger and to find dead and wounded badgers.

This is an upsetting and frustrating mission, as a great deal of the shooting can be seen some distance away.

The guns are silenced to a degree — it's the badgers screams that can be heard.

Parking can be difficult for these people, particularly in unfamiliar villages, and car doors and talking may be heard well into the night.

This is not intended to upset villagers but is insignificant in comparison to the suffering of the badgers being shot and terrified into leaving their home territory.

Sadly, most of these badgers will be very healthy animals but none of them will be tested for bTB, which seems strange, and only 120 out of 2,500 shot in Somerset will be examined for humane killing.

Farmers say publicly that they are devastated by the number of cattle that go for slaughter totally unrelated to bTB.

DEFRA is no longer transparent about these figure but in 2003, 38,000 cattle were slaughtered due to TB.

We don't know how many of those proved to be negative but it would be a considerable number.

This is in comparison with 90,000 dairy cows killed annually due to mastitis (udder infection), 31,000 due to lameness and 125,000 due to infertility.

This is dwarfed, of course, by the nearly three million that go for slaughter into the food chain or when their milk productivity drops.

These are not figures that the public is notified of. There is now no requirement of an animal keeper to inform the authorities of any death of an animal other than a notifiable disease.

The dairy industry is the main reason there is so much TB in cattle.

Pressure from supermarkets and the consumer for lower prices force farmers to produce milk as cheaply as possible, giving rise to low welfare standards of dairy cows.

Cows should not be expected to carry as much as 40lbs of milk in huge extended udders to and from places of milking which can be two or three times daily. This alone produces a huge strain on an animal which is designed to feed one or two calves only.

The life of a dairy cow now is pure drudgery, hence the immune system is badly affected, giving rise to the susceptibility of disease.

It is difficult to give her the attention she needs when part of a herd of several hundred cows.

For this to change, we need to pay more for our milk and farmers to have much smaller herds to enable much better management of individual cows.

Hence, I would suggest to readers if you want to save the badger, help dairy cows to have a better life - you must help the farmers get a better price for their milk by lobbying the supermarkets.

This can also be achieved by reducing your dairy intake considerably or cutting it out completely so less milk is produced by farmers. Milk is not a healthy product for you or your bones.

If any readers would like to join a badger night patrol which is peaceful and law-abiding, we meet in Williton car park at approximately 7.30 pm every evening.

The only requirements are walking shoes, torch and a high vis jacket if possible.

I speak to many people who would like to join us but are nervous about what people might say, afraid of the dark or think they may get shot!

We have encountered some very aggressive shooters but the police are out there to look after us and seem to be doing a very good job. We haven't lost anybody yet!

Meg Sunningdale,

Withycombe.