Culling badgers is the right thing to do to avoid "appalling consequences" for farmers, cattle and badgers, David Cameron has said.
The Prime Minister warned that the Government could spend "another billion pounds" dealing with the consequences of bovine tuberculosis, which is partly spread by badgers, if the planned culls do not go ahead.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Farming Today, he said, "They are going to go ahead and it's important that they go ahead. I think the countryside needs from the Government not just cash and commitment but it needs courage. This does require political courage, but we have that political courage because quite simply it's the right thing to do."
He continued, "If we don't do anything we're going to be spending over the next ten years another billion pounds dealing with the consequences of bovine TB, and let's be clear there are appalling consequences not just for the cattle and the farmers, there are also appalling consequences for the badgers."
Around 5,000 badgers are set to be killed in two pilot culls in West Gloucestershire and West Somerset as early as this month. The culls have been licensed over a six-week period from 1 June, and the pilots will assess whether enough badgers can be killed in an area to have an impact on reducing TB in cattle.
