Reed now targets 38,300 badgers for slaughter in 2024 - it doesn’t have to be this way
- Badger Trust Staff Team
- Oct 17, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 3, 2024
Intensive Cull figures released show over 10,000 more badgers marked for slaughter, bringing the kill target this cull season to 38,300.
New figures released by the government yesterday reveal that over 10,501 badgers have been marked for slaughter in licences issued under the controversial and ineffective intensive badger cull that started on 30 August 2024.
Adding this figure to the expected kill figures for the existing supplementary badger cull means the total number of badgers marked for slaughter in 2024 now stands at up to 38,300.
The government’s astonishing policy decision to continue to cull in areas with badger populations known to be below 30% now makes local extinctions inevitable.
Five areas ( 55, 58, 59, 60, 70) have no minimum number set, because according to Defra “This is because the population estimates indicate a population below 30% of the pre-cull population”. Given that the intention of culling was to reduce the badger population to 70% in target areas, this shows a blatant disregard for the ongoing survival of badgers in large areas of our country.
However, this comes at a time when Natural England has admitted in a Freedom of Information request (see below) asked by Badger Trust, that “Neither members of the licensed companies who carry out fieldwork, nor Natural England undertake population estimates”. They went on to say, “Natural England does not measure or estimate population abundance or remaining population size”. So this begs the question, how do they determine these minimum and maximum kill targets, by the presence of badger setts alone?
In the same FOI response, the government also admitted simply rolling over supplementary kill targets from 2023 to 2024, with little regard for badger population levels and the devastating effect on the species. In some form of bizarre logic, these supplementary numbers remain the same each year for the duration of the licence, so for areas continuing into 2025 these figures will also be rolled over. This is justified to “maintain continuity”, despite “uncertainty in the size of the remaining badger population”.
To highlight the illogical nature of this, five of the intensive cull areas (Areas 57, 63, 64, 66, 69) have 2024 minimum kill targets higher than the number of badgers they actually killed in 2023. For Buckinghamshire, the minimum target is 611 badgers more than they killed last year.
In the figures released yesterday, the government has confirmed the issuing of a cull licence for Cumbria until 2028, despite culling in this area up until 2021 showing that badger culling had no effect on bTB in cattle.
These figures confirm that Defra Secretary of State Steve Reed MP and the Labour government have targeted the slaughter of 38,300 badgers in the 2024 cull season, even though they called the badger cull ineffective in their election manifesto.
Intensive culling has already begun in many areas, and in fact some areas are nearing the end of their cull season. Defra must have issued these figures to cull contractors ahead of the start of the cull period, so why did they delay releasing the figures publicly? Even an earlier Freedom of Information Request from Badger Trust received a response of ‘figures will be released in due course’.
The government also released new figures on the costs of the cull. Between 2014-2023 the reported cost of the cull was at least £21,951,000. In 2023, the cull cost at least £1,556,000, a huge reduction of the over £3 million it cost in 2014. This is because of the scrapped spending on efficacy monitoring and much reduced costs on advice and assessments. It also ignores many of the hidden and administration costs of managing the cull.
Wales and Scotland do not cull badgers and have better results on bTB prevention in cattle — a fact Defra and Natural England continue to hide through its selective presentation of statistics.
Peter Hambly, Chief Executive of Badger Trust, said:
“Over 230,000 badgers have already been killed out of a population estimated at 485,000 at the start of the killing, all in a misguided attempt to control bovine TB, a mostly cattle-to-cattle spread disease. Now, Steve Reed and Labour have signed off on the slaughter of over 38,000 badgers in 2024. Killing wild, native badgers in these numbers is the biggest assault on nature and the most unethical approach to animal welfare on record.
Unlike Scotland and Wales, England unfairly focuses on the badger and carries out an unjustified, cruel, ineffective cull. Unlike cattle, badgers are not even pre-tested for bTB before slaughter. The most recent government study showed cattle are 800 times more likely to pass bTB to badgers than badgers to cattle. The government must properly test and vaccinate the cattle, not kill the badgers.
What makes this worse is the new government admitted the cull is ineffective in its election manifesto. They were right, so we are calling on them to stop the slaughter that is happening right now. It does not have to be this way. How can people who do not believe this cull works sign off record numbers of protected badgers for slaughter and force local extinction in cull areas across England?
This slaughter is against animal welfare agreements and is extremely unpopular with the majority of the public. The government needs to stop listening to the agricultural lobby and start introducing proven cattle-based measures that will actually deal with this disease. They simply have no respect for wildlife and nature to treat a native species so cruelly and unjustifiably. ”
Tens of thousands of badgers are still being killed when Labour knows culling doesn’t work. This policy makes no sense, and this iconic and popular native species must be protected now before it’s too late. Properly test and vaccinate the cattle to control bTB; don’t slaughter more badgers.”
Further information
Control areas authorised in 2024 (Natural England figures)*
*Adapted from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-authorisation-for-badger-control-in-2024
Supplementary control areas authorised in 2024**
** Adapted from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-authorisation-for-supplementary-badger-control-in-2024
Download Freedom of Information Response: Request No EIR2024/07579
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