As a former livestock farmer of well over 50 years’ experience, I should like to respond to the comments made by Ama Menec, 700 badgers are killed in cull across the South Hams, January 12.

She makes a number of claims regarding the benefits of badgers, which I do not recognise as being accurate.

As a young lad growing up in the 1950s, I do not recall ever seeing any evidence of badgers or their setts and it was only since the Badger Protection Act 1992 that their numbers have multiplied by many times, as is evident by the often seen road kill.

Following this, in my own case I was saddened to see a copse where snowdrops used to flower, followed by bluebells in the spring, being completely spoilt by a very large badger set. Ground-nesting birds have largely disappeared ,not by the use of farm chemicals but because of the badgers enjoyment of their eggs.

My own herd of cattle had gone 65 years before the first cases of TB in 2005, after having gone some 28 years as an enclosed herd.

It is certainly good to read in the Farmers Guardian, January 5, that there has been a 58 per cent decrease in bovine TB in Gloucestershire and a 21 per cent drop in Somerset, following the reduction by culling of badgers in those areas.

I see this as a great benefit not only to the livestock industry but also to a smaller and therefore healthier badger population. I have yet to meet a farmer who wants to see a decline in wildlife and I always took a pride in the diversity on the land that I farmed.

Unlike Ms Menec, I believed larger badger numbers hindered rather than helped the biodiversity and ecological balance that I remember prior to 1992.

George Beable

Wrangaton