The plan from DAERA Minister Edwin Poots for a targeted cull of badgers in TB hotspot areas has received the support of the main political parties at Stormont.

In an online meeting with UFU members, representatives from local parties made clear that the proposals will meet little opposition in the Assembly.

“The aim is to bring the sheer volume of badgers down in those hotspot areas and then move towards a vaccination regime.

“That’s the proposal and we are broadly in favour of it,” said Sinn Féin MLA Declan McAleer.

We realised that testing and vaccinating is much too slow

The Ulster Unionist Party initially wanted wildlife intervention to involve capturing and testing badgers for TB, where negative badgers are vaccinated and released, and only TB positive badgers are culled.

However, Rosemary Barton confirmed that the party’s position changed when more information became available.

“We realised that testing and vaccinating is much too slow when we are trying to make progress in eliminating TB. We would be supportive of a targeted cull of badgers,” she said.

Likewise, Patsy McGlone from the SDLP said he backs a badger cull in hotspot areas if it allows policy to eventually lead on to a TB vaccination programme for badgers.

We should look at all those options before we come to any conclusions

The only opposition to DAERA’s plan came from Alliance Party MLA John Blair, although his main criticism was about how politicians were consulted about the proposals.

His party favours the test and vaccinate approach to badger TB, although he did not completely rule out giving support to a targeted cull at some point in the future.

“We should look at all those options before we come to any conclusions,” Blair said.

It will need to be looked at by the experts

Some concerns have been raised about how TB in wildlife will be addressed on the farms that fall outside cull zones. The current costings from DAERA are based on badger culling across 12% of NI.

The DUP’s William Irwin acknowledged the concerns but argued that the DAERA proposals present a credible way of addressing TB in wildlife.

“It will need to be looked at by the experts. It’s not black and white or straight forward. But I don’t think anybody wants every badger in the country killed - it’s the hotspot areas and the areas that are causing concern,” Irwin said.