Sussex farmers are being offered the option of having badgers on their land vaccinated against bovine TB.

The Sussex Badger Vaccination Project (SPVB) has been set up to offer an alternative to culling.

Five volunteers have taken and passed a vaccination and training course run by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Gloucestershire.

The project is focusing on parts of East Sussex which have been placed on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) high risk list.

This means a badger cull could reach the county as early as next June.

Bovine TB is a very serious challenge to dairy and beef farmers which can lead to infected cattle being slaughtered and farms being on shut down until tested clear.

Badgers are known to be infected with bovine TB and many people believe that the disease can’t be controlled solely by improving cattle management.

In the west country, the Government has been carrying out a trial cull of badgers since late August and, if deemed successful, they plan to roll out a badger cull across 40 further areas of England, which could include East Sussex.

The project believes vaccination is a sustainable approach to reducing TB in wildlife and cattle without the public opposition associated with badger culling.

Kate Edmonds from SPVB said: “We set up this project to give farmers in East Sussex an extremely low-cost choice to vaccinate rather than to cull.

“East Sussex is unique in that geographically it’s an “island” of bovine TB.

“Indeed it has a unique strain of the disease, and therefore is ideal as a test case for a combined approach of badger vaccination and changes in cattle husbandry.”

SBVP will be using volunteers throughout their project and they are fundraising to cover capital costs.

Ms Edmonds said: “This means that it will be far cheaper for a farmer to vaccinate badgers than to cull them – as well as being more effective.

“This isn’t about being anti-cull – we just want to be part of the solution to eradicating bovine TB from cattle and wildlife in East Sussex.”

Trevor Weeks MBE, founder of East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service, is one of the volunteers to complete the course.

He said: “We had practical hands-on experience of how and where to set traps, and a very early morning start when we went out and vaccinated 30 badgers and cubs between us.

“We are really pleased to be the first of a team of qualified lay vaccinators available in Sussex to help support the fight against bovine TB."

SBVP have begun contacting farmers and landowners and other interested parties to offer the service, which it hopes to start next spring.