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Swansea City FC helps fund badger vaccination pilot

Swansea City Football Club is helping to fund a badger vaccination scheme to help eradicate bovine TB in the Gower peninsula.

The Championship team said it has seen the ‘devastating effect’ the disease has on local farmers’ livelihoods.

The funding is part of a pilot project involving the football club, caravan parks, Gower Heritage Centre and Swansea Council.

The project, which the Welsh government partly funds, seeks to vaccinate badgers over a four-year time frame.

Dafydd Saunders Jones, chairman of the South East Wales TB Eradication board, told the BBC: “Bovine TB has many impacts – on tourism, farmers’ mental health and the environment around us.

“People understand that and that’s why they’re keen to work with us.”

The pilot aims to reach 70 percent of the peninsula’s badger population – estimated between 600 and 1,200 animals.

It has already performed vaccinations at six badger setts.

Analysis of recent government statistics reveal a staggering toll of bovine TB on farmers in the country.

Figures show 11,977 cattle in Wales were slaughtered in the 12 months to April this year

The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) said farmers are feeling ‘anger and frustration’ as the industry continues to feel the devastating impacts of the disease.