There has seen a dramatic fall in the number of cattle slaughtered to control bovine TB in Wales.
Welsh government statistics show that slaughter numbers have fallenby a third. They were 9,364 in the 12 months up to December 2012. They dropped to 6,275 for the same period last year.
New herd incidents also showed a significant fall of 23% in 2013 compared with 2012. Statistics show that there were 880 new herd incidents compared with 1,145 in the previous year.
This compares favourably with overall figures for the UK, which show a 6% reduction in new herd incidents, and a 15% fall in cattle slaughtered .
Wales farm minister Alun Davies suggested that the figures demonstrate that the Welsh government’s approach to bovine TB eradication was working. In June, Wales will host a world conference on Mycrobacterium bovis involving countries that have made progress towards eradicating bovine TB.
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