Wildlife issues
Whenever the idea of a badger cull rears its head, huge numbers of healthy animals face being wiped out. Culling also opens the doors to badger persecution, encouraging vigilante groups to shoot them at will.
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic airborne respiratory disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis). It can infect and cause TB in badgers, deer, goats, pigs, camelids (llamas and alpacas), dogs and cats, as well as many other mammals.
It’s what’s behind the ongoing calls to cull badgers, blaming them for spreading the disease – but it’s not accurate.
Research suggests bovine TB spreads because of the intensive rearing and breeding practices of the farming industry and the wide transportation of cattle.
Illness spreads rapidly on overcrowded intensive farms and transportation and markets spread disease around the country, with live exports spreading it even further.
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What the science says
Whenever the idea of a badger cull rears its head, huge numbers of healthy animals face being wiped out.
Culling also opens the doors to badger persecution, encouraging vigilante groups to shoot them at will.
But culling doesn’t square with the science. In the Krebs Trials (Randomised Badger Culling Trial – RBCT) – the world’s biggest ever scientific study into the issue – the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) spent over £50 million on a massive pilot cull of around 11,000 badgers between 1997 and 2007 – only to decide that culling isn’t the solution.
The trial showed bTB in the culling area was only marginally reduced. Outside the culling area, it actually went up. Removing a reservoir of the disease might seem like a good idea, but it ignores badger behaviour.
Badgers stay largely within their social territory, but disruption, such as culling, means previously stable groups split up and badgers move into other territories carrying bTB with them.
Strong opinions against culling
At the time, numerous high-profile organisations and individuals came out to back up the findings and call for culling to be scrapped.
“The trial evidence should be interpreted as an argument against culling. If you cull intensively for at least 4 years, you will have a net benefit of reducing TB in cattle by 12% to 16%. So you leave 85% of the problem still there, having gone to a huge amount of trouble to cull a huge number of animals…I can’t understand how anybody who’s looked at the science would say this is a good idea.”
Lord Krebs, who conducted the RBCT
Natural England – the government body responsible for licensing culls, stated it had a “low level of confidence” that Defra’s plans would yield results.
English Nature – the Government’s own official wildlife advisers pointed out to ministers, culls in the 70s and 90s “proved ineffective at preventing a rising incidence of the disease in cattle”.
Bow Group – this Conservative think-tank called for culls to be scrapped. The report, ‘Common Sense and Bovine TB’, presents the reasons why they believe culling isn’t the answer. The Group highlighted that the government should focus efforts on badger vaccination as trials have reduced incidences of TB by almost 74%.
Caroline Lucas – Green party, said “The go-ahead for a barbaric slaughter of badgers shows a shocking disregard for animal welfare – and flies in the face of scientific evidence on the spread of the disease as 80% of bovine TB transmission is thought to be caused by cattle-to-cattle infection. Given it is a respiratory disease, this high rate can be attributed to the trend towards intensive dairy farming, in which cattle are kept in crowded conditions.”
Even the government’s own risk assessment raised concerns about the impact of free shooting:
“If a different culling strategy to that conducted in the Random Badger Cull Trial is used the effect on TB incidence and the degree of the resulting perturbation is uncertain.”
(Defra consultation on badger control policy, Veterinary Risk Assessment (annex E, para 5), September 2010.)
2013 – pilot culls dropped
In 2013 the government gave the go-ahead for pilot culling trials, which proved to be a complete disaster. The government’s independent panel of experts found the culls to be both ineffective and inhumane.
The targets were missed, and worse, up to 18% of culled badgers took longer than five minutes to die. Meanwhile, a total of £7.29 million was spent on killing 1,771 badgers in Somerset and Gloucestershire (more than £4,000 per badger).
Our work
In 2017 and 2018, together with the Badger Trust, we ran training days for Wildlife and Rural Crime Officers and Police Community Support Officers.
- Badger ecology to help police to recognise unusual activity.
- How to identify active badger setts.
- How to use wildlife crime legislation to its full extent.
- How to work with key partner organisations like Naturewatch Foundation.
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