WRITTEN QUESTION P-2621/98

by Nel van Dijk (V) to the Commission

(31 July 1998)

Subject: Threat to the badger (meles meles) in the United Kingdom

How can the Commission claim, in its answer dated 30 March 1998(1) to Mr Doeke Eisma's Question P-0787/98, that the measures recommended in the Kreb report, namely the extermination of the badger in selected areas, would also benefit the badger population as a whole, given that only a very minute percentage of badgers is infected with TB and that partial extermination of the badger will not lead to the eradication of the disease among badgers?

Does the Commission regard total extermination of the badger in the United Kingdom as acceptable because the badger is indicated as the cause of TB?

Is not the credibility of European nature policy tarnished, given that the total or partial extermination of badgers constitutes an abrupt break with the current practice, based on European nature policy, whereby reserves are set aside in the United Kingdom for badgers, tunnels are built beneath roads to cut the number of badger deaths and entire badger families are provided with new habitats if they can no longer be managed in their old habitats because of urban developments?

Is the Commission prepared to reconsider its view that it is acceptable for a native protected animal species living in the wild to be exterminated because it may be involved in the spread of diseases among domestic animals?

(1) OJ C 310, 9.10.1998, p. 129.