SIR — The countryside is probably at its most beautiful at this time of year. The hedgerows are spectacular with a wealth of wild flowers nodding gently in the summer breeze.

For the untrained eye it would appear to be idyllic but look a little closer and you may encounter a very different scene.

Hidden in the woods and on the moors, concealed beneath the ferns and wildflowers there lurks something very sinister which spells suffering and death of one of Britain's most legally protected and best loved wildlife species.

It was with deep sadness that I watched a family of badgers happily playing in the gathering gloom little knowing what fait awaits them. For these delightful little creatures are being mercilessly slaughtered even though there is not a shred of evidence to implicate badgers in the transmission of bovine tuberculosis to cattle.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is destroying one of Exmoor's best assets, its wildlife.

Exmoor depends on tourism and after the foot and mouth crisis when so much of the British countryside was closed to the public causing severe financial hardship to many of those involved in tourism, the last thing needed is to put tourists off visiting beautiful Exmoor by destroying its wildlife.

I doubt very much if tourists will want to visit a county besieged by DEFRA operatives setting traps (often alongside public footpaths), shooting badgers and leaving cubs, some still young enough to be dependent on their mothers, to starve to death underground.

Mary Lynch,

Trevowah Road,

Crantock,