Badger cull continues to fail

The Government’s badger cull was politically motivated, not based on sound science. Seven years on and after the culling of 40,000 badgers that reality remains.

I opposed the cull then warning that culling badgers would risk making the problem of bovine TB worse. I helped set up the first community-led Badger vaccination project in West Cornwall with Prof Rosie Woodroffe of ZSL .

We’ve lost so much valuable time when the Government could have followed science rather than playing politics with the spread of bovine TB.

With Prof Rosie Woodroffe and anaesthetised and vaccinated badger 6 years ago

Reported on the BBC today:

Up to 9,000 of badgers are likely to have suffered “immense pain” in culls to control cattle TB, according to a former government adviser.

Prof Ranald Munro is the ex-Chair of an independent expert group appointed by the government to assess its trials.
He has written to Natural England to say that the policy is causing “huge suffering”.

He adds that the culls are not reducing TB in cattle and in one area the incidence of the disease has gone up.
The culls began in 2012 following appeals from cattle farmers whose livelihoods are continuing to be damaged by the spread of TB.

Prof Munro’s independent expert group found that up 23% of badgers took more than five minutes to die after they were shot. These figures prompted the group to conclude that the culls were inhumane in its assessment report to government. This document’s publication was delayed but its contents were revealed by BBC News in 2014.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49611457