MP Richard Drax calls for more wild animals to be culled

More wild animals should be culled to control their numbers, according to a Conservative MP.

Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, has dismissed calls by conservation groups to end the badger cull, which aims to curb bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cows.

Speaking at a debate on farming in the House of Commons, he instead suggested more animals, such as deer and foxes, should also be culled as they have no natural predators in the UK.

The government refused to comment.

The badger cull started in Gloucestershire in 2013 and spread to Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Dorset.

More than 210,000 badgers have been culled so far, the Badger Trust said.

Cattle spread the respiratory infection to each other, but they can also catch it from badgers - so they are killed as well.

Mr Drax said bTB was a "major problem" in the South West, telling the Commons: "Culling has proved to work, and can I suggest that rather than talking about stopping culling on badgers and to introduce some other form, that all wild animals have to be culled.

"Because if they don't their health deteriorates. They don't have any predators in today's world. Foxes, deer, badgers. We don't want to wipe them out, we just simply want them controlled.

"This is just pure common sense," he added.

Figures showed the number of cattle with bTB going for slaughter in England in 2022-23 was 20,228 - a 24% fall on the previous year and the lowest number since 2008.

A Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) spokesperson told the BBC the government was hoping to eradicate bTB in England by 2038.

They said it was moving to the next phase of its long-term strategy, which would focus on wider-scale badger vaccination - but added culling would remain an option "where epidemiological assessment indicates that it is needed".

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