THE Princess Royal has blamed badgers for spreading bovine tuberculosis, which is infecting twice as many farms as foot-and-mouth disease.

“If anyone tells me there is no proven link between bovine TB and badgers I will see them outside later,” she told a farming conference in Cambridge yesterday.

The Princess has sided with the farming industry over an issue which is causing many farmers misery and loss of income. The disease has spread to her own herd of White Park cattle, one of the most endangered and ancient breeds.

It was not clear yesterday how many of her cattle have been slaughtered after testing positive but her farm on the Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire is under restriction.

There are now 4,000 bovine TB-infected farms compared with 2,030 during the foot-and-mouth epidemic. Farmers are demanding that the Government allow them to carry out an emergency cull of badgers. The Princess did not specifically call for such a cull but her scathing remarks about current policy were evident.

She quoted latest National Farmers’ Union figures, which forecast that the epidemic is going to cost the country £190 million. She said that taxpayers already thought that farming was over-subsidised and suggested that they may also feel that this spending was unnecessary, especially “when we can control and have controlled it in the past”. This was understood to be a reference to the previous strategy of letting farmers shoot badgers.

Elaine King, director of the National Federation of Badger Groups, said: “It is not badgers which are causing the spread but cattle-to-cattle transmission following the movement of cattle to restock farms wiped out during foot-and-mouth.”

Ministers have rejected an emergency slaughter policy for badgers and are awaiting the results of scientific trials to establish if badgers are the cause of the disease.

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