SIR — It is typical and hypocritical that the animal rights lobby are whingeing by castigating and denigrating the Countryside Alliance - a legitimate lobby group - for "attempting to water down or neutralise the effectiveness" of the legislations listed (Ian Pedley, Your Letters February 27).

The Hunting Bill had minimal to do with the welfare of the hunted animal – the quarry. It was the rabid MPs baying for the blood of Middle Britain, who themselves during the debate revealed their motivation was class warfare, prejudice, bigotry and revenge for the miners strike.

The same MPs and groups are now campaigning that there must not be a targeted cull of TB-infected badgers.

Only an efficient cull will control the escalating TB crisis in our cattle. Once again they are being fuelled by seriously flawed and biased pseudo- science.

They are cherry picking and falsely misinterpreting the evidence to deliberately deceive the naïve and gullible.  

In a MAFF survey 1986-1997 in the West Country, nearly a quarter of the badgers had bovine TB. Some of these infected badgers have 1,500,000 TB bacteria in their urine which they are continually dribbling out to contaminate the environment.

There is very sound evidence that infected badgers are directly responsible for over three-quarters of the TB outbreaks in cattle herds. Over 40,000 reactor cattle were compulsorily slaughtered last year alone. 

In spite of all the evidence still the bigots are in denial.

The extermination of the badger population as falsely claimed is not on the agenda. Infected setts can be identified by using a Polymerase chain reactor (PCR) test so the cull is targeted.

The nocturnal badgers are then gassed in their setts using an overdose of an anaesthetic. Death is painless and stress free.

Carbon dioxide - not carbon monoxide - is blown into the setts using dry ice from the same type of pump as used in theatres etc to produce a fog.

Until there is a cull of the TB-infected badgers, the cattle situation will continue to escalate.      

D J B Denny,

Broadwas on Teme,

Worcester.