Animal rights activists are expected to descend on two areas in the West next autumn after they were chosen as the sites for controversial badger cull trials.

As the Daily Press predicted this week, one pilot is in Gloucestershire and the other in Somerset, both bovine TB hotspots.

However, Labour MPs fear the decision could further stretch under-pressure police forces if it provokes clashes with animal rights extremists.

Last night the League Against Cruel Sports urged farmers to boycott the trials – although they were chosen from a shortlist submitted by the industry.

One pilot area is mainly in the district of West Somerset, and partly in Taunton Deane.

The other is near Tewkesbury, mainly within the Forest of Dean and Tewkesbury, and partly in the districts of West Gloucestershire, and Malvern Hills and Wychavon in Worcestershire.

Agriculture Minister Jim Paice said farmers and landowners in the two areas could now apply for licences for the six-week trials, which will see them shooting free running badgers.

They will have to be able to show a good level of competence in marksmanship, and complete a training course, there must be a high incidence of TB in cattle, and they will have to pay for the pilots.

Mr Paice said: “Bovine TB is a chronic and devastating disease. It causes the slaughter of tens of thousands of cattle each year and is taking a terrible toll on our farmers and rural communities.

“Nobody wants to cull badgers – but no country in the world where wildlife carries TB has eradicated the disease in cattle without tackling it in wildlife too.”

But shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh warned: “This big society badger cull will cost farmers more than it saves them, put a huge strain on police, and will spread bovine TB in the short term.”

Bristol East Labour MP Kerry McCarthy, an outspoken campaigner against a cull, raised the issue at Environment Questions in the Commons yesterday.

She said: “There is widespread opposition in the South West to badger culls in our local communities, not least because the scientific evidence shows that such culls are completely ineffective.”

The announcement exposed tensions within the coalition, as it was attacked by Gloucestershire Liberal Democrats, who said an industry-led shooting spree on badgers would end in failure.

Group leader Councillor Jeremy Hilton said: “Farmers will bear the financial cost of a process that needlessly kills healthy badgers and which most likely will increase bovine TV in their herds.”

LACS chief executive Joe Duckworth said: “This is a clear cut case of Defra making a bad decision and leaving farmers to do their dirty work. “There is no doubt that the public will react strongly to badgers being shot on their own doorstep but Defra has cleverly distanced themselves from this leaving farmers to deal with any backlash.”

Animal welfare charity Humane Society International warned total badger extermination in the pilot areas was a real possibility, and the RSPCA was “devastated” by the news.

The Wildlife Trusts said the badger cull was wrong, and the Government should step up efforts on vaccination, and help prevent transmission on farms by better bio-security.

Prominent North Somerset farmer and Daily Press columnist Derek Mead said: “It is about time something is done as it is costing hundreds of millions and farmers are committing suicide as a result.

“But as a farmer and countryman I’m sceptical of the plans and won’t be happy to see healthy badgers killed.

“There are other ways to identify the infected sets before culling them, but they aren’t being listened to because they aren’t coming from scientists.”

South West National Farmers Union spokesman Ian Johnson said it was a brave decision.

“Culling the badgers is not something any farmer particularly wants but it is an appropriate and necessary measure.

“It is not a case of trigger happy farmers going out and killing the badgers.”

Related content

Badgers to be shot in Somerset during six-week cull trial