This is a national issue which will be of direct concern to the people of Dover/Deal when DEFRA "rolls out" its culling policy in 2014. The object of the petition is to ensure that Dover/Deal's badger population is as safe as possible from slaughter and that the already available injectable badger vaccine against bTB is used in as many cases as possible. We ask this because we believe the culling policy is inhumane (DEFRA's measurement of "humaneness" is to time the screams of wounded badgers), inefficient (previous culls showed an increase in bTB because of badger movement) and unscientific (the majority of scientific opinion hold that a cull will have "no meaningful result").It is also a huge waste of finances and unreliable. The vaccination programme is more humane, cost effective and the results will result in a long term fight against bTB.
This Online e-petition ran from 27/11/2013 to 23/07/2014 and has now finished.
69 people signed this Online e-petition.
The Petition has now closed and has been referred by the Head of Democratic Services to the Scrutiny (Policy and Performance) Committee, which will consider it at its meeting to be held on Tuesday 11 March 2014 at 6.00pm.
Update - 23 July 2014
The Scrutiny (Policy and Performance) Committee at its meeting held on 15 July 2014 received an update report from the Director of Environment and Corporate Assets in respect of the further information requested by the Committee. It resolved to invite the petition organiser to its meeting to be held on 23 September 2014 to provide further information in respect of vaccination prior to making its final recommendations.
The Committee will consider a written briefing from the petition organiser at its meeting to be held on 23 September 2014.