Badger Trust is ready to help new DEFRA Secretary of State, Steve Reed
- Badger Trust Staff Team
- Jul 15, 2024
- 2 min read
National badger charity offers assistance and support in delivering Labour’s manifesto commitment to “end the ineffective badger cull”.
Badger Trust has written to Steve Reed MP, the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, offering to work with the Government to end the badger cull immediately.
The Labour Manifesto called the badger cull “ineffective”. We agree. Bovine TB is a mainly cattle-spread disease, with badgers being scapegoated for political reasons. Badgers are not culled in Wales and Scotland, yet England continues to waste money and badger lives instead of focusing on cattle herd management.
The supplementary cull, the intensive cull, and the ‘endless culls’ consultation
The supplementary cull, ordered by the last government, started on 1 June 2024 and runs through to January 2025. Thousands of badgers will be killed in this cull, although Defra still hasn’t released how many or what exact areas are being culled. This killing is going ahead despite Natural England’s (licensing authority) own scientific lead advising it be halted as it would not impact bTB rates in cattle. Badger Trust and Wild Justice also currently have a pre-action letter in with Defra about the supplementary cull and we expect a response by 19 July 2024 before we decide the next steps.
The intensive cull is due to start in late August 2024 and also runs through to January 2025. Again, this will lead to thousands of badger deaths. In addition, we await the outcome of a recent badger cull consultation —run by the last government—calling for endless badger culls.
Yet the Labour Government has admitted culling badgers is “ineffective.” We agree, and that’s why we have written to Steve Reed to stop the cull immediately. The killing should be ended and rejected, as it runs against the new government policy.
Tackling Bovine TB Together
We outlined ways forward in our ground-breaking publication, “Tackling bTB Together”, published earlier this year. The future lies in dealing with the disease in the herd. Independent scientists and various studies have supported this approach since the original Randomised Badger Cull test in 2008-2010.
Peter Hambly, Chief Executive of Badger Trust, commented:
“ It’s time to put things right. The Labour manifesto rightly called the badger cull ineffective. We agree, and now is the time to end it before any more badgers are killed. We want to work with this government to make this happen immediately.
"No one should be slaughtering even more badgers and their cubs, who are just scapegoats in the relentless cattle-to-cattle spread of BovineTB. The government must end the badger cull right now. We need to stop wasting taxpayers' and farmers’ money on this unethical, ineffective and inhumane assault on nature.”
Download the Badger Trust letter to DEFRA Secretary of State, Steve Reed
What next for badgers and the cull?
Badger Trust has planned an End the Badger Cull Day of Action for 3 September 2024 in London. We will join with others to present tens of thousands of signatures against the badger cull at Defra. A mass lobby of new MPs and a peaceful demonstration opposite Parliament will also take place.
Badger Trust hopes this day is not needed and that the cull will be ended by that date. The charity is willing to help the government in any way it can to meet this shared objective.
