FARMERS in Gloucestershire have accused the RSPCA of being selective in its concern for animal welfare in the newspaper advertising campaign it has launched on the issue of badgers and their role in TB in cattle.

NFU regional director Anthony Gibson said that in resisting action to deal with the disease in cattle, the charity was turning a blind eye to the welfare of tens of thousands of cattle that were either slaughtered prematurely each year because of TB or subject to near intolerable stress levels caused by almost continual testing.

Mr Gibson said: "We're at a loss to understand how allowing an insidious and highly infectious disease to spread through the countryside is in any way consistent with concern for the welfare of either domestic or wild animals.

"For the sake of both cattle and wildlife, we have to tackle bovine TB on every front, no matter how difficult and unpleasant that may be."

He pointed out that farmers had nothing against healthy badgers and were every bit as opposed to badger baiting as was the RSPCA. "The enemy in this issue is disease," he said, "and the best way to combat it is for all of the interests concerned to fight it together."

But RSPCA senior scientific officer Colin Booty said he believed badgers were being made scapegoats for the rise in bovine TB.

"This is in spite of the scientific evidence which indicates that culling badgers is very likely to make the situation significantly worse."

He said that a whole range of scientific studies showed that infected cattle were the key source of infection in other cattle. "There are 13 million cattle movements in the country each year."

Urging an increase in testing, he said: "The government is ignoring the scientific evidence in going for a badger cull. The RSPCA hopes that the public outcry will be too great to be ignored."