A FRESH legal challenge could be launched to halt the badger cull in West Somerset after the Government announced the pilot scheme would not be extended nationally.

The cull is due to continue for another three years in both West Somerset and Gloucestershire but opponents from the Badger Trust are hoping to seek a judicial review to stop the pilot culls altogether.

It follows last week's announcement by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson that the culls would not be rolled out across the country but that a programme of vaccination would be used around the areas worst hit by bovine TB instead.

The Government had intended to extend the cull into at least ten other areas across the South West but pulled out after an independent report found the pilots had been ineffective and that many animals had taken over five minutes to die.

Monitoring reports compiled by Natural England also found some badgers were not shot correctly, others had to be shot more than once and some marksmen failed to follow biosecurity measures designed to prevent the spread of disease.

Ministers ordered the first culls in West Somerset and Gloucestershire last year in an attempt to test whether shooting free-running badgers was an effective, humane and safe method of controlling badger numbers.

The report concluded the total number of animals killed fell far short of the number required to ensure TB was not spread further by badgers disturbed by the culling.

Speaking last week, Mr Paterson said the Government had to do something to control TB but added: "We have always been clear that there would be lessons to be learned from the first years of these four-year culls."

He said vaccinating around the edges of TB hotspots would create a buffer zone of immunity to stop the spread of the disease.

Dominic Dyer, chief executive of the Badger Trust, welcomed the news but questioned the logic of continuing the pilot culls.

"Culling is cruel, expensive and won't work. The Government should call it off completely and come to the table so we can plan a way of beating bTB which will actually be effective.

"The Badger Trust will now be looking at options to take a judicial review case to the High Court to stop any further badger culling."

The Government said it would introduce a "series of changes", to improve the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of the trial culls when they resumed later this year.

The RSPCA branded it a "misguided policy" which had resulted in the deaths of more than 1,800 badgers last year.

"To continue with [the pilot culls] would be both irrational and pointless.

"The RSPCA, alongside many other organisations, has always maintained the methods used in the cull would not be humane and that culling is not the answer to effectively controlling bovine TB," the charity said in a statement.

But the National Farmers Union said there was "bitter disappointment" within the farming community that the cull was not being rolled out across the South West.

NFU president Meurig Raymond, said: "We do have to eradicate this disease within the cattle herd or otherwise we could end up destroying the cattle industry, particularly on the western side of the country."