The Government's annual badger cull should be shelved this year because of the risk of marksmen spreading coronavirus, campaigners said tonight.
Tens of thousands of the creatures are slaughtered each autumn as the Tories bid to halt the transmission of bovine TB in cows.
Some 102,188 badgers have been killed since the controversial programme began in 2013, with 35,034 dying in last year's scheme, which operated in 40 areas of England from Cornwall to Cumbria.
The cull will begin to be phased out in the next few years, with vaccination of badgers being ramped up instead.
But animal welfare campaigners fear tens of thousands of the creatures are still doomed to die before the cull is completely stopped.
In a letter to be sent on Monday to Environment Secretary George Eustice, Badger Trust chief executive Dominic Dyer called for this year's programme to be scrapped amid the Covid-19 crisis.
The letter, seen by the Mirror, says: “Should the badger cull continue and be expanded in 2020, we estimate that it will require thousands of cull contractors operating as shooting and trapping teams across large parts of our countryside.
“Each of these cull contractors would pose a risk of Covid-19 transmission in the wider rural community as a result of working in teams and coming into contact with farmers and landowners, the police and members of the public.”
He adds: “They would also have to undertake thousands of non-essential journeys to carry out their culling activities and to dispose of badger carcasses at incineration facilities.”
Mr Dyer also points to the security operation around culling, with police officers often on patrol to prevent confrontations between licensed shooters and animal rights activists.
“The Badger Trust therefore believes a decision by the Government to halt the badger cull in 2020 would be in the best interests of common sense, public health, animal welfare and efficient use of police resources, particularly at a time of unprecedented national health and economic emergency,” he says.
Cull supporters believe killing badgers helps curb TB in cows, with badgers blamed for carrying the disease around the countryside, infecting cattle.
But opponents believe the shooting and trapping programme is ineffective.
Labour has pledged an immediate end to the “cruel and unnecessary” scheme.
Shadow Environment Secretary Luke Pollard said this month: “There was never any evidence that the cull worked but ministers kept authorising killing more and more badgers anyway.
“We now need a proper science-led approach to tackling bovine TB and an immediate end to the cruel badger cull.”
