AN end to a Government cull of badgers has been called for by animal welfare campaigners as new figures revealed nearly 2,000 of the nocturnal creatures could be killed across Somerset in a new round of culling.

The Badger Trust said new supplementary cull licences issued by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) amounted to an ‘open season’ on badger cubs.

It said DEFRA’s approval of 11 licences for zones stretching from Cornwall to Cheshire showed the controversial Government badger-killing policy was ‘nowhere near over’.

DEFRA-sponsored public body Natural England also authorised licence holders to resume badger killing in a further 18 existing supplementary cull areas.

The data showed that from June 1 through to next January 31, up to 29,000 badgers could be killed in the supplementary cull areas alone, including 1,795 in Somerset.

The licences have been issued just at a time when badger cubs were starting to venture out from their setts.

Culling will include this year’s cubs, which could be as young as four months old as the killing starts.

Badger Trust executive director Peter Hambly said the future of the badger was now seriously under threat, especially in areas of Somerset,Devon, Cornwall, and Gloucestershire.

Mr Hambly said only 15 per cent of people supported the badger cull, yet last year, more than 33,000 badgers were killed in culling in England.

Nearly7 90 per cent of the badgers were killed using free-shooting methods, considered an animal welfare abuse and deemed unsuitable for use as a culling method.

Mr Hambly said: “The first thing many of this year’s new badger cubs will see when they come out of their sett is the barrel of a gun.

“At the same time as we say we want to be more nature-friendly by 2030, we are killing our native wildlife on a daily basis, to the brink of extinction in some areas of England.

“All this when the evidence overwhelmingly points to cattle-to-cattle transmission as the primary spreader of bovine TB.

“The badger cull is the most toxic wildlife management strategy in Britain’s contemporary history.

“To kill half of our badger population under these circumstances is a wildlife catastrophe.”

Mr Hambly said since 2013, more than 210,000 badgers had been culled in a bid by DEFRA to eradicate bTB in cattle.

But, he said evidence produced by DEFRA itself failed to prove badger culling reduced bTB in cattle as it overwhelmingly pointed to cattle-to-cattle transmission as the primary infection route.

In Wales and Scotland, badgers were not killed and instead priority was given to cattle-focused measures such as restricting movements.

More information about the Badger Trust can be found on its website here https://www.badgertrust.org.uk.