19 April 2011
Last updated at 22:01 ET
A decision to cull badgers could prove to be as controversial as selling off nationally owned forests
The National Trust is to vaccinate badgers against TB this summer in a bid to curb the disease in cattle – the first UK landowner to do so.
The trust hopes its £320,000, four-year project on Devon’s Killerton estate will make the case for vaccination as an alternative to culling.
Cattle (or bovine) tuberculosis costs the UK about £100m each year.
The government is set to approve badger culling in England soon, and the Welsh Assembly Government also plans a cull.
Research published last year showed the vaccine lowers infection in badgers.
Some cattle herds contract TB through contact with badgers, which carry the bacterium, although infection from other cattle is
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