By Pallab
Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News
13 November
2018
An
independent scientific review has said that badger culling can have a
"modest" effect in reducing cattle TB.
But it adds
that the policy would lead to more than 40,000 badgers being culled a year.
The report
says that such high levels of culling may not be publicly acceptable.
The authors
urge the government to accelerate the development of non-lethal controls, such
as vaccination.
The findings
were published in a review led by Prof Sir Charles Godfray of Oxford
University.
But one
expert said the report had little to say about the effectiveness of the current
badger culls.
The report
was commissioned by Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs, in February.
He asked an
independent group of scientists to review Defra's strategy for controlling the
spread of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle. According to Prof Godfray he was
"explicitly asked" not to look at the effectiveness of the current
culls.
Instead Prof
Godfray and his team drew on the results of the Randomised Badger Control
Trials carried out between 1998 and 2007.
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