Thursday 16th September

We talked about badgers in Science today… lots of them are going to be “culled” (which means some being killed) ‘cos so many of them have got a lung disease called TB. They give it to cows in the fields and then the cows have to be killed. Humans used to get it too from milk before it was “pasteurised”, which means heating it up till the bugs are killed.

Genie said she thought it wasn’t fair ‘cos they didn’t mean to give the cows TB. Mrs Redman said “Yes but they do, don’t they?” Tod said “Just kill them! They’re no use!” which made Annie REALLY cross! I said it was a shame ‘cos they’re beautiful animals, but Pearl said there were loads of them so they weren’t going to become extinct if they were cut down a bit. Plus what about the cows? They were getting ill and being killed too, thousands were. She’d read all about it, typical Pearl!

Really difficult...