What are you hiding? Badger Trust calls out Defra amidst latest environmental threats

Badger Trust Staff Team
Oct 5, 2022
5 min read

Whilst Defra keeps cull locations secret and wider threats to nature are revealed, Badger Trust looks closer at England and Wales bTB stats.

Every autumn for the past decade, the government website has been updated with information on the year’s newly granted badger cull licences. These figures, whilst they show a harrowing picture with the death toll rising to more than 176,000 badgers in 2021, provide vital information on the locations and numbers of badgers expected to be intensively culled in England over the autumn months.

This year, the tenth consecutive year of the controversial cull, has presented badger protectors with a unique quandary; the government has elected not to publish any figures. And it has yet to respond to calls asking for clarification on where, and how many, badgers will be put to death in 2022. A recent letter to Natural England from Badger Trust Executive Director, Peter Hambly, urging them to release the 2022 intensive cull licence data, has not resulted in publication. This comes at a time when environmental protections are under threat, paving the way for further attacks on our native wildlife and their habitats.

Never before has nature in the UK been so at risk in what is already globally recognised to be one of the most nature-depleted landscapes on the planet. Not more than two months have passed since intensive heatwaves saw wildlife on the brink, yet now green solutions could be scrapped for unsustainable practices. The badger community has been at the brunt of this approach for ten years. The government prefers to devastate a protected native species, rather than deal with the bTB problem at its source – enforcing stricter cattle movement and biosecurity, whilst developing and rolling out an effective cattle test and vaccination programme.

Estimated to have already cost at least £60 million of public funds from 2013-2019, scrapping the badger cull could, at the very least, show some level of scientific and economic sense in these difficult times.

If the government refuses to commit to this, then they must be honest with the public and admit where badgers are being culled. The lack of information also has safety implications, with shooters out in areas that may not have been intensively culled before. Indeed, it is no longer the case that badgers living in high-risk bTB areas are the only clans subject to culling.

The badger cull has become a free-for-all eradication programme of a species otherwise known as one of the most legally protected of Britain's native species.

Last year saw the introduction of badger culling in Lincolnshire, which is formally identified as a “very low-risk area” for bTB transmission. We only need to look at the statistics in Wales to see that the decision to cull in England makes little sense.

The TB Eradication Programme for Wales, introduced in 2008, did not include scapegoating or culling badgers. Instead, the Welsh government has chosen to focus on independently gathered epidemiological evidence and cattle biosecurity measures. Unlike in England, the Welsh government also tests badgers for bTB via the ‘All Wales Badgers Found Dead Survey'. Results of this survey show that for “Low TB Areas”, bTB is present in just 0.4% of surveyed badgers. Why then, in England, is the government indiscriminately killing badgers in areas with a similarly low-risk bTB status? Furthermore, in regions of Wales classified as ‘Intermediate TB Areas’ (those where less than 5% but more than 0.2% of herds have had a bTB incident in the year), epidemiological evidence confirms badgers are not causing bTB spread. Rather, the cause is the proximity of farms to the English border, where the disease is more poorly controlled.

Many farms in Welsh Intermediate TB Areas occupy land on either side of the Wales/England border, specifically neighbouring the counties of Shropshire and Cheshire. Instead of mandating cattle biosecurity in these areas, or even just using a more accurate cattle test to identify hidden reservoirs of disease in herds, the government has chosen to intensively cull badgers.

However, killing badgers is not working, because cattle moved from cull areas go on to transmit bTB to new herds in lower-risk regions.

Indeed, the Welsh Government assesses that at least 75% of bTB cases in cattle in Wales can be tracked to cattle movement, and past studies found over 90% across Great Britain.

It is alarming that the government, which has already made confusing and contradictory claims regarding its future plans for managing bTB in England, has decided to keep intensive cull zones for 2022 under wraps. Local badger groups are often unclear whether they are in an intensive zone or not, and unsure how to approach the issue.

No one knows whether badgers are being culled in yet more low-risk bTB areas, where these are, and how many will be killed.

Without this information, badger groups, animal welfare organisations and volunteers cannot easily monitor the health and welfare of badger populations. Nor can resources be directed to areas where injured badgers may be in need of help since most slaughter is by shooting free-running badgers.

Executive Director of Badger Trust, Peter Hambly explains:

"The shocking truth is that Defra has targets to kill at least 70% of badgers in intensive zones, whereas the proportion of cattle culled – who actually spread most bTB – is less than 1%."

"This is because they only cull cattle with bTB, but with badgers, they just kill all they can find without testing them to see if they even carry bTB.

Since calling on the government – to no avail – to release this year’s badger cull licence figures, Badger Trust has received ongoing reports from concerned members of the public fearful that badgers are being culled in new areas. The location of lethal wildlife shooting is in the public interest, and the refusal to publish this information puts members of the public at risk.

"With rumours of up to ten more licences already issued in secret, it is clear that badger culling will continue well beyond the promised end date."

"The government faces a lot of scrutiny after revealing its latest environmental attack. Sadly, at Badger Trust, we know that badgers have been under attack for the last ten years, and already face local extinction in areas of intensive culling. It’s time to protect our wildlife, not attack it further.”

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Enough is enough. Badgers deserve better © Badger Trust 2022 badger image © Rachel Bigsby

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