LOCAL MP Mike Amesbury has supported a ban on shooting badgers during a debate in Westminster.
Mr Amesbury, Labour MP for Weaver Vale, backed the 106,000 people who petitioned Parliament in opposition to the practice.
Badgers have been blamed for spreading tuberculosis (TB) to cattle leading to licensed culls, by shooting, in Cheshire and other areas.
Mr Amesbury said: “I am sympathetic to farmers in my constituency and further afield who suffer financially due to infected cattle having to be destroyed.”
But he argued there was ‘growing evidence’ to suggest culling badgers didn’t work.
“While culling reduces the badger population locally, it causes any surviving badgers to range more widely, potentially leading to a greater spread of TB,” he said.
“A recent study showed the shooting of more than 140,000 badgers since 2013 has had no impact on levels of the disease in cattle.”
Last summer Mr Amesbury met volunteers from Cheshire Badger Vaccination Programme (CBVP) who employ a pro-conservation approach to tackling the problem.
He explained: “They have adopted a more humane approach that protects our precious wildlife while helping to rid the countryside of TB. Trained volunteers capture badgers in live traps before administering a TB jab and then releasing them back into the wild. I even sponsored the cost of a vaccination and received a cuddly badger in return.
“I believe the vaccination of badgers – and eventually of cattle when the vaccine is developed – will be key weapons in the fight against TB in our rural areas.”
The MP added: “Farmers are also advised to implement a raft of measures such as making grain stores and food-water troughs badger-proof.”
CBVP believe bovine TB is mainly caused by cattle-to-cattle transmission, with badgers ‘only a small part’ of the problem.