§ Sir Anthony Kershawasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much cyanide gas is required to gas a badger sett; how many badgers are killed; and how long he estimates it takes them to die.
§ Mr. Peter WalkerA precise answer is not possible as badger setts may vary in size and in the number of individuals using them. Over the years 1975 to 1981 the average amount of Cymag powder—including that for follow-up operations—has been about 1.5 kilograms per sett.
§ Sir Anthony Kershawasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what advice he has sought as to the best way to kill badgers; and whether he will take this advice.
§ Mr. Peter WalkerIn September 1979 I asked Lord Zuckerman to inquire into the whole question of tuberculosis in cattle and badgers and pending his report I suspended the gassing operations which had been taking place since 1975. He raised this issue specifically in the course of his inquiry and was advised that no better way was known of dealing with social groups of badgers suspected of being tuberculous.
Lord Zuckerman recommended that control operations, including gassing, should be resumed as soon as possible because the disease could not be allowed to spread in the badger population. At the same time he recommended that further inquiries should be made about hydrogen cyanide in order to discover what concentrations in the air of a sett would be needed to kill quickly and humanely.
I ordered that such experiments should take place and I have recently received the results of these experiments. They are unexpected in the present state of informed opinion and they indicate that the response of the badger to cyanide is different from that of other animals such as rabbits. The reasons for this difference are not understood.
The results do, however, imply that there must be doubt whether all the badgers in a gassed sett die quickly and therefore whether they die humanely. This is because the levels of gas secured in a sett are in general lower than the new experiments show to be required.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I therefore acted at once to suspend gassing as a means of badger control.
As a matter of urgency I am seeking the advice of the consultative panel on badgers and tuberculosis on what alternative methods are available which can provide an effective and humane means of controlling tuberculosis in badgers so that the best method can be applied as speedily as possible in the interest of preventing the spread of disease to cattle and healthy badgers.