can they kill 9,841 badgers this year?
licences for the ten zones here
So far over a total period of 52 weeks of combined culling in three areas over three years nearly 4,000 badgers have been killed. So is it actually possible for nearly ten thousand to be killed in the ten zones this year?
Each zone now can kill for more than 6 weeks, but not much killing is likely to happen in November as badgers come out far less frequently. So at most there is 10 weeks in which to kill these ten thousand badgers, no doubt the areas that have had culls in previous years will manage to reach their very low targets this year:
the minimum number of badgers to be removed in Area 1- Gloucestershire in 2016 is 228.
The minimum number of badgers to be removed in Area 2-Somerset is 75.
The minimum number of badgers to be removed in Area 3-Dorset is 390.
The roll out targets can be found on p16 of this link
After 2013 it became obvious to everyone that free shooting isn’t an effective method of killing, the idea was that only 10% of badgers would be killed in traps where shooting was difficult. All the data from previous years shows that roughly half of killing is done with traps, last year more than half was done with traps in the first year of killing in Dorset.
On average cullers in Dorset were setting 158 traps every day during the cull last year, so if that is replicated across all the areas to achieve about 60% killed with traps. Around 2000 traps need to be set every day. Some traps go missing and a number are always being transported from sett to sett and there is usually a reservoir of traps kept, so in total we’d expect this years cull to be relying on about 3,000 cage traps.
Our intelligence tells us that they don’t have that many traps, which means that they have to share traps within zones and with neighbouring zones. This means that more than ever, the destruction of cage traps is going to have a massive impact on this years cull, every single trap that is taken out in the first week could be stopping many many more badgers being killed in the ongoing weeks.
Traps are being found now in zones as they are put down before culls start to get badgers used to them, play your part. Find the traps.
for advice on how to help: http://badgeractionnetwork.org.uk/