So, at long last, the cat's out of the bag and the Westcountry's farming industry can (probably) look forward to a badger cull to stop the spread of bovine TB, writes Peter Hall.

Is the programme, announced last week by the Government just before they all went away on holiday, something-and-nothing, or the light at the end of a very lengthy and often crooked tunnel?

And will it happen at all? Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said it wouldn't, if the scheme did not work in the pilot areas. And there's no knowing what a judicial challenge will produce.

Whatever . . . it won't solve the problem, enshrined in legislation, of a burgeoning badger population, frequently too numerous to feed itself (and thus susceptible to disease), and impinging on both farming and the balance of nature.

We all want to see a countryside with a healthy and secure badger population. But surely there must be a realistic re-assessment of the situation to allow a regular and humane limitation of that population?

And surely the environmental organisations, that purport to have the badgers' interests at heart, first and foremost, should become an important part of that whole, vital process?