A WILDLIFE centre in the Vale has given its support to people protecting badgers after the planned six-week cull started.

The controversial cull, aimed at tackling tuberculosis (TB) in cattle, has now started in parts of Gloucestershire. The exact coverage area of the cull has not been announced.

Tweeting on Sunday, the Vale Wildlife Centre, in Beckford, said: “Badger cull starting in our area at midnight apparently.

Good luck to all those out there protecting our badgers.”

Writing in her blog this week, the founder of the centre, Caroline Gould, referred to TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham who said this week: “It is both sad and shameful that when night falls and the setts of southern England stir, their gentle folk will be needlessly slaughtered. That in spite of science and public will the wrath of ignorance will further bloody and bleed our countryside of its riches of life. That brutalist thugs, liars and frauds will destroy our wildlife and dishonour our nation’s reputation as conservationists and animal lovers.

“So I fear that tonight could be the darkest for British wildlife that we have witnessed in our lives. I feel sick, sad, disempowered, betrayed, angry and crushed by the corruption of all that I know as right. I feel rage.”