Badger cull: 'This has split communities down the middle' Marilyn Bramall, 62, serving behind the till at the Post Office and shop in the village of Stogumber - at the heart of the Somerset culling zone - has lost patience with those who oppose the action. How many people are being gassed in Syria? And we're complaining about a few badgers getting killed? I know a lot of farmers, I've spoken to them, and they are desperate to do something to tackle the bovine TB which is spreading through their herds, forcing them to slaughter valuable cattle. Tom Howes, a 19-year-old medical student whose father owns the shop, has listened carefully as the cull became one of the main topics of conversation in the village over the past few weeks. "I appreciate the protesters believe in what they are doing, trying to disrupt the cull, but if a disease like this was effecting their livelihood I'm sure they would be demanding something be done about it," he said. If there were other methods to use then fine, but at the moment culling is the most widely agreed way to reduce bovine TB. Nowhere has the debate between those for and against the cull been more divisive than in the nearby village of Withycombe, where one resident went as far as putting a poster on her garden gate denouncing one of her neighbours for taking part in the scheme. Meg Sunningdale, 66, named the farmer and accused him of being one of the marksmen contracted to carry out the cull. She has since taken down the poster, after being warned by Somerset police it could constitute a case of harassment. "Perhaps it wasn't very wise of me," said Mrs Sunningdale. But this is something I feel very strongly about and feelings are running very high. I have badgers who come into my garden at night and I do not want them shot. The evidence against badgers for spreading TB is not conclusive, and there is no sound scientific evidence to say the cull will work. Even Defra says it will reduce bovine TB by only 16 per cent. Mrs Sunningdale milked and looked after a herd of cows for several years in the 1970s, after studying agriculture at college. She blames the rapid spread of bovine TB across the West Country in the past 15 years on intensive farming methods, which she says have weakened the immune system of cattle. For their part, farmers blame the decision by the 1997 Labour government to scrap regular badger culls for the explosion in levels of the disease. Meg Sunningdale (SWNS.COM) The farmer named by Mrs Sunningdale, who lives only a few hundred yards from her, has declined to comment, but one of his neighbours said opponents of the cull failed to appreciate the scale of the problem. Bill Carroway, 69, a retired estate worker, born and brought up in Withycombe, said: "I wish these people would wake up. They just don't seem to understand how many badgers there are round here and the problems they cause. It's not just spreading TB, its foraging for food. When food is scarce they get desperate. A friend of mine near here lost 25 chickens to a badger. Over in Ireland they've had a badger cull for 10 years and the bovine TB has gone down. We haven't got a proper vaccine against TB and we won't have one for 10 years. In the meantime something has to be done. These are arguments roundly rejected by hundreds of volunteers patrolling the cull zone. Armed with whistles and torches, and wearing high-visibility jackets, they have spent the past six nights playing a game of cat and mouse along darkened country lanes, in an attempt to disrupt the work of the marksmen tasked with shooting around 5,000 badgers across a 58-square mile area of Somerset and Gloucestershire. The occupations of those 'on patrol" last week ranged from teachers to IT workers, translators and graphic designers. Patrol leader, Stephen Rowsell, 47, is a medical equipment engineer who has mapped the routes and organise the trails followed by the volunteers. They stick closely to public rights of way to avoid being accused of trespass and, according to Mr Rowsell, a local boy, are not looking for confrontation with the marksmen. "The shooters will hear us and see us coming and hopefully move on," he said. That's a victory for us because it means we've displaced their work and the badgers along our route will be safe for another night. But, unlike members of Somerset Badger Patrol, there are those will go to extreme lengths for their cause. The National Farmers Union says intimidating tactics have already been used, including the setting off of rape alarms in paddocks near sleeping families, locking gates to fields where farmers are working, nuisance phone calls, powerful torches shone into windows at night and threatening texts and letters. One 74-year-old widow who lives on a former farm in the area reportedly received threatening phone calls, despite never been involved in farming herself. "I try to tell them that I'm nothing to do with it, but they still call me 'scum ' and 'murderer,"" she said. It is understood that anarchist groups from London, Manchester and Bristol have begun to organise cull sabotage raids in the area. Several groups of saboteurs, dressed all in black, many of them wearing balaclavas, have arrived in the culling areas with the intention of disrupting the killings. In a disturbing escalation two anarchist groups opposed to the cull have claimed responsibility for a fire which last Monday devastated a £16 million police firearms training centre in Portishead, near Bristol. Police, who have already stepped up patrols in the two cull zones, fear the arson attack could be just the first in a series of incidents designed to intimidate the contractors employed to carry out the cull and the farmers who support it. Back in Stogumber, Liz Pearson, her husband Geoff, and their two teenage children, are enjoying the summer sun outside The White Horse pub, before setting off on a walk. "I'm personally very much against the cull, but many of the farmers I know genuinely believe it's vital to stop TB," said Mrs Pearson, 49, a social worker. The cull has split communities and even families down the middle and has left a very bitter divide. People on both sides feel very strongly about this.