Badger culls risk increased spread of TB to cattle, study finds

9 October 2019

Culling badgers drives them to roam further afield, allowing them to disperse tuberculosis over a larger area, new research suggests.

The culls might thus increase the risk of TB spreading to cattle, the scientists behind the study warn.

The government commissioned its own review of the culls, but has yet to respond to the recommendations.

The review urged the government to explore alternative approaches to culling.

It was led by zoologist Sir Charles Godfray, from Oxford University.

The government said its own research indicated that the culls were working.

Co-author Rosie Woodroffe, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), said the results backed the scientific consensus that culling will - at best - slow the spread of TB only to a modest extent.

Additionally, it could potentially accelerate infection.

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As badger culls begin, could one pioneering vet’s bovine TB test end the slaughter?

Research at a secret location in Devon may help eradicate bovine tuberculosis without a single badger being killed, says leading vet

Patrick Barkham

Sunday 15 October 2017 00.04 BST

A pretty stone farmhouse sits in a bucolic green valley, surrounded by airy cowsheds. It looks like a timeless west country scene but is actually a pioneering farm, where cutting-edge science is helping to solve the hugely controversial, multimillion-pound problem of bovine tuberculosis (bTB).

As an expanded badger cull gets under way this autumn, in which 33,500 animals will be killed to help stop the spread of the disease, a leading vet, Dick Sibley, believes this Devon farm demonstrates a way to eradicate the disease in cattle – without slaughtering any badgers.

Sibley’s trial, at a secret location, was halted earlier this year when two new tests to better identify bTB in cattle were deemed illegal. But government regulators have now given the vet permission to continue. His work is backed by rock star-turned-activist Brian May, whose Save Me Trust last week began a four-year programme of vaccinating badgers at the farm against bTB.

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Government badger cull kill targets 'deliberately set too low'

Lower cull targets are easier to achieve but risk increasing instances of TB in cattle rather than reducing them, warns expert

Wednesday 29 March 2017 10.06 BST Last modified on Wednesday 29 March 2017 17.40 BST 

The government’s killing targets for the controversial badger cull in England are “deliberately being biased down”, according to a leading animal population expert.

The badger cull, now rolled out to seven counties in England, is part of efforts to reduce the scourge of tuberculosis in cattle but has been heavily criticised by scientists. 

Farmers failed to meet the targets for badgers shot in the first culls and the lower targets have been easier to achieve. But scientists warn that lower targets run the risk of actually increasing TB in cattle, because the remaining badgers roam more widely and can spread the disease further afield.

 “The targets are being based on poor estimates of [badger] population size and are deliberately being biased downwards,” said Prof Tim Coulson, at the University of Oxford, who was a member of the government’s Independent Expert Panel that scrutinised the first year of culling in 2013 before being disbanded.

This less accurate method produces a population estimate with very wide error bars and, rather than using the central estimate to calculate the cull target, the government is using the very lowest figure at the bottom of the range of uncertainty. This leads to a cull target likely to be much lower than needed to remove a high proportion of the badgers. 

“The tools are out there to do this properly,” Coulson said. The “gold standard” method, he said, was to capture and identify badgers and then recapture them to calculate a good estimate of the population before and after culling, but that this was discontinued after the first year of culling: “The reason for that was primarily financial.”

Badger populations are now estimated using sett numbers and other landscape features which Coulson said was not very accurate. Furthermore, the government was setting the killing target at the lowest end of these estimates, he said. 

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'Fake science used to justify badger culls'

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News

28 March 2017

A senior researcher has accused the UK government of using "fake science" to justify its policy of culling badgers to control cattle TB.

Prof Rosie Woodroffe has told BBC News that ministers were creating an "illusion" of success to justify the policy.

She was speaking ahead of a scientific symposium on controlling cattle TB.

Ministers say their approach is supported by government scientists and leading vets.

When evidence is being cherry-picked and presented in the best possible light it ceases to be evidence. It is fake scienceProf Rosie Woodroffe, ZSL 

Prof Woodroffe, a wildlife expert at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) who carried out the scientific assessment of culling badgers to control Cattle TB on which the current policy is based, said the government risked losing trust on how it used evidence - not just on its policy on controlling cattle TB but also on other important scientific issues.

"When evidence is being cherry-picked and presented in the best possible light, it ceases to be evidence. It is fake science.

"When it comes to (other policy areas) such as climate change and bee pollination, issues that have a big impact on lives and livelihoods of people, it is important that we can rely on the government to provide good evidence that stands up to scrutiny."

England has the highest incidence of TB in Europe and that is why we are taking strong actionDefra Spokesman 

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which oversees the badger cull, responded: "England has the highest incidence of TB in Europe and that is why we are taking strong action to deliver our 25-year strategy to eradicate the disease and to protect the future of our dairy and beef industries.

"Badger control in areas where TB is rife is one part of our long-term plan, which also includes strengthening cattle testing and movement controls, improving biosecurity on farm and when trading, and badger vaccination when possible."

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Badger cull kills more than 10,000 animals in three months

Ministers claim soaring number is a success in effort to cut bovine TB in England but charities question cull’s effectiveness

Friday 16 December 2016 17.54 GMT Last modified on Friday 16 December 201623.15 GMT

The number of animals shot in England’s controversial badger cull soared to more than 10,000 this autumn, as part of the government’s attempt to cut tuberculosis (TB) in cattle.

Ministers claimed the result as a success but a leading scientist said there was “no basis” for suggesting the cull was effective, while wildlife charities said badgers were being used as a scapegoat for failures in the intensive livestock industry.

Badger culling was rolled out to seven new areas in 2016, and with ongoing shooting in three other areas, 10 culls took place across Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Somerset.

A total of 10,866 badgers were killed between August and October, according to government data published on Friday, bringing the overall total to more than 14,800 since culling began in two areas in 2013. Half the badgers killed in 2016 were shot without first being trapped, a method rejected as inhumane by the British Veterinary Association in 2015.

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