Are you going on holiday to a nature extinction zone?

Badgers are disappearing from parts of Britain’s countryside after 250,000 years – slaughtered by public policy.

Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire sound like great holiday destinations. In fact, they are hotspots for the most significant act of nature devastation in our lifetimes—the wholesale slaughter of badgers by decree of public policy.

The 1st of June marks a time when many of this year’s badger cubs will venture farther from their setts for the first time. Horrifically, it‘s also the start of the supplementary badger cull, when shooters go into fields and kill untested badgers inhumanely by free shooting.  

Many badger cubs will be shot, and many will be left orphaned.  Badgers could be left shot and injured to wander through woodlands, dying a slow, painful death over many hours.  The Chief Vet says this type of shooting is acceptable to most people – we disagree.

Badgers face local extinction in holiday hotspots

According to government figures, over 230,000 badgers have been slaughtered in England since 2012, representing around half of all Britain’s badgers.  In the heavily culled holiday hotspots listed, they cannot find enough badgers to shoot; local extinction events are occurring right now.

The reason given for this unprecedented attack on a much-loved native species is to stop bTB spread in cattle.  However, badgers are 800 times more likely to catch bovine tuberculosis from cattle than to infect cattle themselves.  Around 94% of bTB cases occur because of cattle-to-cattle transmission.  Badgers are not the main spreader of bTB – cattle are.  

Cattle vaccines are already used worldwide, yet public policy delays their rollout in the UK, costing farmers and taxpayers millions of pounds. The latest consultation to ‘evolve badger control’ reveals plans to continue this needless badger cull indefinitely.  

The badger slaughter policy is not the way to control bTB

Peter Hambly, Executive Director of Badger Trust, said,

“The policy of intensive and prolonged badger slaughter is not the best way to control bovine TB. 

Our native wildlife should not be subject to lethal control when there are viable alternatives, which, in this case, there are.  Bovine TB will still be present in farmed cattle because that is where the disease starts and spreads. So, focusing on robust cattle measures is the only effective method of eradicating bovine TB.   

We must protect nature and our native wildlife and show policymakers what is important to us.

Badgers, cubs, their setts and our natural environment need protection, not attacks and painful, prolonged deaths.  It’s time for the slaughter to end.”

How you can take action for badgers

Sign our petition to end the cull and show policymakers you want protection, not extinction.

Take part in Wildlife Artivism to End the Cull, our community art campaign to save badgers.

Get involved with your local badger group and make a difference for badgers near you.