THE cost of the badger cull pilots in Gloucestershire and Somerset was £4,100 per badger shot, campaigners claim.

Charity Care for the Wild almost doubled its previous estimate, made in October, of £2,200 per animal, and now puts the total cost of the cull trials, which began in August, at £7.3 million.

Taxpayers will pick up £5.8 million of that, with farmers paying directly to cover the direct costs of shooting the 1,771 badgers.

Reported by the Gloucestershire Echo. You can read the full story here. 

Matthew Burgess
http://www.mattburgess.co
I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.