Badger Trust outraged as latest cull figures reveal record proportion killed by inhumane shooting
- Badger Trust Staff Team
- Mar 31, 2022
- 5 min read
Catastrophic scale of the attack on one of Britain’s best-loved native animals could see local extinction in some English counties.
Badger Trust expressed outrage as the Government revealed at least 33,687 badgers were slaughtered in 2021 as part of its ongoing and intensifying badger cull campaign. This figure brings the total to over 175,000 since 2013, representing over a third of the entire UK badger population.
The proportion shot while free running rather than the more humane caged and trapped hit a record of nearly 9 out of 10, despite calls to stop this inhumane method that can leave injured badgers to die slow deaths.
The charity reveals that the scale of the attack on one of Britain’s best-loved animals could lead to badgers disappearing from areas across the country and populations becoming unviable in others.
At the same time, support for this controversial measure stands at only 15% in England[1], the only UK nation where the cull is ongoing.
Defra has announced that they killed at least 33,687 badgers in 2021 as part of its failed attempt to tackle bovine TB (bTB) in England. Adding this to the number of badgers killed in the past eight years brings the total number of badgers unnecessarily killed to over 176,000, representing over a third of the badger population in England and Wales.
Peter Hambly, Executive Director at Badger Trust, commented:
“The figures are appalling.
The attack on badgers intensifies.
With scant evidence that badgers spread bTB to cattle, this assault on a much loved wild animal is reaching catastrophic proportions and needs to stop now.
The number of badgers killed is nauseating. 33,687 badgers were killed in 2021, with it appears none being tested to see if they even had bTB. At the same time the amount of badgers free shot, i.e. when the badgers are free running, rather than the more humane caged and trapped, reached a record 87.7% - nearly 9 out of 10. These badgers have an increased risk of dying slowly and in great pain. Over 100,000 signed a petition to stop free shooting and that led to it being the subject of a Parliamentary debate just a week ago.
Most people oppose the cull, yet they don’t realise the cull is intensifying and getting worse in its nature, threatening one of the greatest mammals this country has. We should be protecting badgers, not attacking this protected native species.”
Details of badger cull figures 2013 to 2021
Hambly continued: “And the sickening total will continue to rise. We estimate the number of badgers killed will exceed 230,000 by the end of 2023, with further years of culling already locked into current expansion plans and four-year licences still to run. The government’s culling policy is inhumane and unnecessary at best – at worst, it’s a smokescreen and ineffective strategy to appease farmers, while continuing to fail them.”
Badger Trust and independent scientists have consistently questioned the basis of the cull. The bovine TB problem and solution lies with cattle. Yet the continued government approach assigns badgers a major role in the transmission of bTB to cattle whilst it routinely ignores core issues of cattle movements and related farm biosecurity. A recent scientific study published in the Vet Record and based on Defra’s own statistics found badger culling had no impact on rates of bTB in cattle at all.
Hambly added: ‘We fundamentally challenge the need to kill badgers when the science consistently fails to pinpoint them as a significant factor in transmission of this terrible disease in cattle. The government would do well to put more time and effort into more effective and rigorous cattle testing, bringing a cattle vaccine to market and focusing on other effective cattle measures, once and for all dealing with this terrible problem for animals, farmers and taxpayers alike. The present policy of focusing on the badger ignores the science, is inhumane and unethical, and wastes taxpayer money at a time of tight family budgets. If the government truly wants to eradicate bovine TB, focus on the cattle, not the badger.’
The number of badgers unnecessarily slaughtered every year accounts now for over 35% of the estimated badger population in England and Wales, whilst the percentage of cattle killed each year is less than 0.5%. At this continued rate of persecution, the future survival of this species in this country is at serious risk. Some areas of England, such as parts of Gloucestershire and Devon, already report few or no badgers in areas where they once thrived.
“They’re systematically extinguishing a species that is part of our heritage”.
A recent consultation led by the Welsh government to tackle the same issue of bTB in cattle, highlighted a strikingly different approach to the Westminster government, by recognising and addressing the root cause of the issue, cattle-cattle transmission. Using the best scientific evidence, and a deep knowledge of what it has seen in practice, the Welsh government has focused its attention on tackling bTB by addressing unsustainable farming practices. By continuing to use badgers as a scapegoat, the Westminster government is persistently deceiving farmers about their ability to achieve bTB free status using the cull method.
It should also be noted that Scotland is declared Officially bTB free, and has done so without a badger cull but with rigorous biosecurity, including risk based trading of cattle instead.
Hambly added: “We know that most people are opposed to the cull and we urge them to join with Badger Trust and our campaign to stop this cull – how many more precious badgers have to be shot before the government comes to its senses? People just don’t know how awful and ineffective this policy is. The Welsh government is rightly focusing on the cattle, not culling badgers and getting better results. We need England to wake up and do the same.”
References
1 All polling figures, unless otherwise stated are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1,444 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 2nd – 3rd February 2022. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all England adults (aged 18+)
2 All cull figures are from Defra statistics https://www.gov.uk/environment/bovine-tuberculosis
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