Category Archives: Fundraising news

Help Stop the Badger Cull U-turn

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Kamikaze bovine TB consultation – will it crash and burn?


On Thursday 28th March 2024 two solicitors’ letters were sent to the government. They express grave concerns over aspects of the Defra five-week badger culling consultation that began on 14th March, and attempts to bring about a policy u-turn on the phasing out of badger culling.

As readers may be aware from our recent blog, there is so much wrong with the proposal that it is hard to know where to start. Put simply, the Chief Veterinary Officer, currently Christine Middlemiss who is based at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) would be given sweeping powers to designate as many new cull areas as she and apparently a group of mostly farmers and cull companies think fit. This would be based upon currently obscure assumptions about how cattle herds have caught bovine TB in any area, yet with the finger wrongly always pointing at badgers.

Future decisions on initiating culls seem to rest around whether badgers share the same countryside areas (mostly they do because of the pasture landscapes) and whether they have the same bTB strain as the cows (mostly they don’t, according to the ‘Badgers Found Dead’ Edge and Low Risk Area surveys). Even if they do, an infected cattle herd may rapidly cause infection of the landscape, including many wild mammal species.

These decisions, to be made behind closed doors, will prevent the promised policy direction to ‘phase out’ badger culling. This phase-out  said that the last cull authorizations would be for 2025, other than in ‘exceptional’ circumstances (we continue to oppose these ongoing intensive culls). But the new consultations would permit an unlimited number of ‘cluster’ cull areas across the whole of England. There would be unlimited badger shootings, over an up to seven month period annually, each year decimating healthy badgers in the hope of killing a handful of infectious ones. Totally unacceptable.

‘Cluster’ culling looks very much like the failed Low Risk Area, so-called ‘epidemiological’ culling, which has killed so many badgers in the Cumbria pilot  without demonstrable effect (see ‘A bovine tuberculosis policy conundrum in 2023‘, chapter 5.). They are trying not to call cluster culling ‘epi-culling’ because of these failures.

What has become clear is that Defra are keen to muddle the effects of tighter cattle testing and movement control  by saying that badger culling has contributed to the well-known reduction in number of herds being withdrawn from trading. But there is no scientific evidence of this, only good evidence that badger culling has shown no effect. Yet Defra and their agency APHA remain in denial. They claim in the consultation that a peer-reviewed published academic study finding no disease benefit is flawed, yet cannot provide the data or any analysis to prove their point. After two years, their public outburst is as useless as it was in March 2022,  when their muddled attempts to undermine published science (the first attempt was withdrawn) came out.

Badger Crowd is in touch with Badger Trust and Wild Justice over a range of concerns over the lack of essential information for fair consultation. Responses from government so far have shed no light on questions asked.

Deadlines are coming up and further legal work is necessary, so an initial fundraiser was launched on Monday 1st April on the Crowd Justice website to fund the Badger Crowd legal work. Our fundraising target was reached by April 11th and the fundraiser has now been closed. Thank you very much to all who have supported. If we are advised by our legal team that we have good grounds to seek a Judicial Review, we will need to launch another fundraiser to cover the costs of this. Thank you for your support.

We are the Badger Crowd. We always stand up for Badgers.

Thanks to Wild Justice

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We were delighted to receive a generous £1000 donation from the mighty Wild Justice last week. This was a contribution towards our badger cull ecological impacts appeal case, which has been expedited to be heard in June or July 2022. You can read more about this here.

Wild Justice, set up in 2019 and run by Mark Avery, Chris Packham & Ruth Tingay as a not-for-profit company, takes legal cases and advocates for a better deal for wildlife. And it has had much success. You can find out more about them on their website here.

We recommend that, if you haven’t already, you sign up for their free newsletter to keep up to date with their current campaigns here.

If you are in any doubt about the value of legal action for wildlife, we encourage you to watch Chris Packham in conversation with David Wolfe QC. Legal action forces a conversation where otherwise there would be none. It shines a light on issues that would otherwise be hidden in the dark, discussed and decided upon behind closed doors. In short, it gives a voice to wildlife, which otherwise would be missing.

Thanks again to Wild Justice.

You can make a donation to our legal fund below:

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Badger cull ecological impacts case –

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Did Defra breach its ‘duty of candour’ to the courts ?

On Wednesday 13th April, the Rt. Hon. Lady Justice Simler granted permission for the High Court decision in Langton v Defra (case ref: CO/2062/2020) to be challenged in the Court of Appeal. The High Court case had been dismissed on 9 August 2021 by the Honourable Justice Griffiths. The case concerned an alleged failure of the Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (S/S) to have regard to the implications for biodiversity of ecosystem disruption following  badger culling, in accordance with the duty imposed on ministers and public bodies under Section 40(1) of the NERC Act (2006), before making his decision to continue badger culling under the ‘Next Steps’ policy.

It should be noted that previous challenges brought by Langton in 2017 and 2018 repeatedly found government and government agencies in breach of duties related to the assessment of badger culling impacts on designated nature conservation sites and associated protected species.  In the present case, it is argued that the NERC Act obligations require that the impact of badger culling across the wider countryside and on the broader and larger biodiversity resource within it must also be assessed, including by the Secretary of State, but simply hadn’t been. The Government argued in the first instance that the Secretary of State wasn’t subject to the duty at all, or that the duty was in any event covered by the assessments carried out by Natural England in the course of issuing badger licences (the same ones the earlier cases had previously convinced the courts were defective), notwithstanding that these only claimed to consider impacts on designated nature conservation sites and related land.

Last Thursday 28th April, Justice Simler confirmed that the appeal case had been expedited to June or July 2022, giving notice of a hearing in the coming weeks. This appeared to precipitate a rapid pre-prepared action from Defra that same day. They sent Mr Langton’s legal team a suite of new documents (including a mass of heavily redacted emails) showing that in October 2021 Defra had placed in front of the then Secretary of State George Eustice a brief paper exercise, summarizing their opinion on the wider biodiversity effects from badger culling, and that he had been asked to reconsider his decision to adopt ‘Next Steps’ in the light of that information.

It is very difficult to read this other than as recognition by Government that the NERC Act S40 duty:

a) did (and does) apply to the Secretary of State (despite their arguing in front of Justice Griffiths that it didn’t),

b) that it hadn’t been considered or discharged by the Secretary of State prior to the adoption of Next Steps (as argued by Langton and his team) and,

c) that the Government was concerned that it may not be possible to defend this position upon further review by the Court of Appeal.

The real matter of concern here is not so much that the Government and its agencies exercised a volte-face and sought to remedy the legal error, but that they did so in secret, without informing the court, and in a situation where the case was still ‘live’. Our legal team has raised this issue with the GLD in correspondence copied to the Court as a breach of a basic tenet of legal protocol – the ‘duty of candour’ – which requires that the courts be informed when circumstances have changed or decisions have been taken (or re-taken) that have a bearing on a live case. Both the court and the claimants legal team should have been informed of the fact of the Secretary of State’s reconsideration when it happened in December 2021. The fact that this secret Ministerial briefing was only revealed after the Court granted permission for the appeal is extremely concerning and begs the question whether it would ever have come to light at all had that permission not been granted?

It’s all there in black and white…. Secretary of State shows the court details of his Ministerial sign-off.

While it is not possible to comment of the quality and coverage of the new Defra material presently for legal reasons, it is sufficient to say that nothing has changed regarding the absence of any proper research by the Government into the collateral effects on biodiversity of badger culling. There remains an overarching need for extensive baseline research and data on the likely effects of predator removal, increases and perturbation in wildlife communities following ecological disruption on nature conservation interests. The research the Government seeks to rely on, to advance the premise that there are no meaningful side effects on biodiversity, remains scant to the point of being meaningless.

Where does this leave us?  Plainly the Government is scratching around to avoid the embarrassment of having the 2020  “Next Steps” policy quashed.

And it will no doubt seek to rely on what is called a ‘no difference’ defence it has sprung as a ‘get out of jail free’ card whenever procedural deficiencies and oversights have been exposed in previous eco-impact claims. Defra’s argument in essence, is that even if the Secretary of State had complied with the duty, he would have come to the same decision. There must come a point where the elasticity in that defence and its ability to cover and excuse all failures at departmental and ministerial level becomes fatigued. But legally speaking, whether what Defra has done behind closed doors may be sufficient for the quashing of the policy will be determined by the Court when it hears the case.  In our view, allowing badger culling to carry on in 2022 without revising the policy to address these very serious and wide-ranging biodiversity impact concerns is simply not tenable.

From a wider UK nature conservation perspective, it is very important that the case should continue, to ensure that ignoring of the NERC Act 2006 in decision making by government bodies is not allowed to become an accepted standard, and to get that confirmed by a Court judgment if Defra are not willing to concede it right away. In other words, the prospect that we could overturn the (we say perverse) ruling of Justice Griffiths in July last year that environment ministers are exempt from considering that part of the environment called ‘biodiversity’ when making decisions, is worth pursuing for many reasons.

If successful, the case could also have the effect of forcing Natural England to reconsider whether they are similarly failing to comply with what the duty demands in artificially restricting their considerations just to designated sites. It would bring into sharp focus the fact that the level of information they rely upon for impact assessment and to inform basic provisions for protection, is inadequate. Impacts are guessed or assumed because there is no background information to inform them beyond speculation, meaningless analyses of borrowed, coarse-grained datasets and a near total absence of monitoring, the lifeblood of real understanding.

These developments merely serve to reinforce the determination to halt badger culling. In recent days legal letters have been sent to Defra and Natural England asking them to stop badger culling in 2022 because of the current peer-reviewed scientific evidence that it has not worked.

So please consider supporting the Crowd Fund linked below. If everyone chips in we can spread the load and gain access to justice for badgers and all our wildlife and countryside.

Thanks you for your support. We are the Badger Crowd. We stand up for badgers.

If you can, please donate here:

Donate


Thank you.

We reached our fundraising target!

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Thank You

Thanks are due to everyone – to those who supported the 2017 challenges and to those joining us afresh. To those who helped promote the CrowdJustice crowdfunder and those who donated to it. It seemed like a  mountain to climb just a few weeks ago, but you all stepped up to make it happen and we reached our fundraising target. Behind the  670 donations is  a majority of the public, disgusted by the cruel, useless badger culls and those who recklessly promote and protect them. There is enormous support for the fight against the badger cull, from a very wide range of people and organisations, and for so many legitimate reasons. Yet it is so hard to challenge the corrupted processes that are stage-managed by government officials and contractors behind the scenes. The voice of the public, including specialists speaking out in the interests of badger and biodiversity protection, and the interests of competent bovine tuberculosis control, have been left out of the decision-making process.  Updates on the case, including the substantive hearing this Thursday 22 July at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, will be issued as things progress. But for now, thanks again for playing your part and for helping to make this possible. We are the Badger Crowd. We stand up for Badgers.

Go Wild for Wild Justice!

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Great news this morning. Wild Justice, the UK organisation fighting for justice for wildlife, run by Mark Avery, Ruth Tingay and Chris Packham are sending over unspent funds from their badger killing welfare legal challenge. This was recently refused permission for Judicial Review, meaning that the disgracefully cruel and ineffective way of killing predominantly healthy badgers, escapes further legal scrutiny. However, this welcome synergy by those seeking to change the more extreme bad management of our wildlife and countryside, means a welcome boost to fundraising for the case now going to court and supported by the BadgerCrowd. Thanks also for a generous link to our CrowdJustice fundraiser from the Wild Justice newsletter today. The crowd fund has already had over 500 donations from people chipping in, and with a last push, we hope to reach our target before the deadline in front of the 22 July substantive hearing. Keep up to date with the important work of Wild Justice by signing up to their newsletter and follow them on Twitter at @WildJustice_org. Their challenges, legal investigations and commentaries are well worth your interest and support.

THANK YOU WILD JUSTICE

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SAVE THE BADGERS * STOP THE CULLS * JUSTICE FOR BADGERS

Funds urgently needed for Badger Cull High Court challenge

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A new crowdfunding appeal is launched today via the Crowd Justice website. 

The Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice has awarded ecologist Tom Langton, permission to challenge an important aspect of the 2020 “Next Steps” Bovine TB eradication policy.

The trial will test whether government failed to meet its statutory duty to protect biodiversity in England under the 2006 Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act before ordering its quango Natural England (NE) to organise the decimation of badgers across much of the west of England.

Government policy hangs on inscrutable modelling, based on culling data from three areas only, and only up until 2017. It ignores more recently published science that has a further years data, which shows that any claim of modelled benefit is premature. The manner in which bTB policy influences our wider countryside, including badger removal, has never been properly addressed.

Cruel, unnecessary badger killings will massively increase from now until 2026, with huge new cull areas. Already 140,000 badgers have been shot and this will now double to around 280,000. Following on from these culls, there is a little mentioned long term policy to expand the extermination of badgers locally with reactive-style culling of 100% of badgers. This will be happening in and around our woods, fields and nature areas, perhaps even close to where you live, with multiple side effects and implications. It just has to stop.

Last year, the Badger Trust generously contributed £5,000 to help seek permission for a case to be made. Badger Groups, other charities and many individuals also gave donations and support to help win through a lengthy appeals process and seek the access to justice that is now available. The persistence paid off.

Together, in numbers, the Badger Crowd can achieve this. The immediate need is to raise £24,000 over the next few months to cover costs for the dedicated legal team planning and preparing the case. They will write legal representations, give advice, attend hearings and deal with matters relating to this deeply flawed government “Next Steps” policy. Every penny raised goes to legal essentials and nothing else.

With your help we can now fight on to stop the policy in its tracks before it causes more damage to biodiversity protection and recovery. And before it does more harm to badgers, cows, farm families and livelihoods. All of whom deserve far better approaches to dealing with a virulent livestock disease that infects and pollutes the environment in very many unseen ways.

Thanks to the many of you for helping get to the point where this challenge can be taken. Thanks also to those donating now for the first time. Once more, we will stand up and fight for the badgers, our beautiful, enigmatic and protected mammal. Victim of the poorly managed cattle TB epidemic and failed statutory duties.

You can donate here: Donate Here 

Fundraising Target Reached, Thank You

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The Crowd Justice fundraiser for Badger Crowd’s legal action has seen a flurry of donations over the last few days. And so it  is very pleasing to be able to tell you that, together with a number of offline donations, we have now reached the £18,000 target necessary to enable our lawyers to complete the required work. A huge thank you to all have donated.

If permission is granted for Judicial Review, we will launch a further appeal according to the stages and procedures.

We must hold Defra and Natural England to account for the cruel, unscientific,  damaging and wasteful badger cull. With your help we will try to do that.

Killing badgers is a scandal. It can do nothing to address inadequate cattle testing and movement control, and the regular spread of bTB by cattle, between farms and into the far corners of England.

Update on Fundraiser Progress

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Thank you so much for all your kind messages of support and generous donations over the first few days of the appeal. In addition to the Badger Trust’s generous donation to get the challenge started, we have had several ‘offline’ pledges, so we  are now over half way to our preliminary target. The Badger Trust has issued a statement about the two new legal cases, the humaneness challenge from Wild Justice (now fully funded) and the policy challenge from Tom Langton, and emailed it out to its supporters. Hopefully this will reach the attention of more people who care for badgers and wish to support the essential legal work.  However it is really important to also get the appeal out to the public at large. You can help by alerting your friends and contacts to Badger Crowd’s donation page, and by letting any suitable social media networks know too. If you are a member of a nature conservation organisation, you may consider writing to them suggesting they draw the fundraiser to the attention of their members.

Earlier this week we had a lot of ‘Freedom of Information’ material sent to us by Natural England regarding their consideration of the future of badger culling  and their reaction to the ‘Godfray Report’ and ‘Next Steps’ policy guidance. It has been sent to our lawyers as it clearly shows the terrible disarray surrounding the governments approach. There is much uncertainty, and there are many gaps in the evidence regarding this horrible policy.

A team of volunteers is working hard to make these legal challenges possible, as are the lawyers. It is an uphill battle, but we will do all we can to pass the milestones ahead and make our case for a court hearing.

Badger Trust Statement, 9th July 2020

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Government faces two new legal challenges as it seeks to expand controversial badger cull policy

Permission for two Judicial Review legal cases is being sought against the government as it seeks to expand its highly controversial badger cull policy in 2020.

 

Wild Justice legal challenge

The first case is being taken by Wild Justice, the non-profit organisation formed in 2018 run by wildlife experts Chris Packham, Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay to ‘fight for wildlife’. The case against Natural England (with Defra as an interested party) concerns the manner in which badgers die from ‘controlled shooting’, whereby individuals are licensed to shoot badgers following a single, short training course.

In 2014, the government’s own Independent Expert Panel advised that badgers should not take more than five minutes to die in more than 5% of cases. Natural England has been observing levels above this yet has taken no action, despite the level of suffering caused. Shooting into the small heart of a badger from a distance can be difficult and the British Veterinary Association has also previously concluded that the method is inhumane.

Funds for this legal challenge have been donated in record time in an outpouring of public disgust and concern over the rapidly expanding badger cull policy. The challenge comes in advance of a further increase in culling with up to ten more licences to be issued by Natural England in September

Wild Justice opposes the entire badger cull policy, but its legal challenge aims to force the government to stop the use of controlled shooting as a culling method on humaneness grounds.

An end to the use of controlled shooting, could also force the government and the farming industry to recognise that now is the time to move towards badger vaccination – a non lethal means of lowering bTB in badgers, on both cost and humaneness grounds.

Tom Langton Legal Challenge

The second case by conservation ecologist Tom Langton, challenges parts of the Next Steps Policy, a response to the government’s bTB policy review in 2018, carried out by Sir Charles Godfray. The key grounds for the legal challenge are as follows :

Supplementary culling and a failure to expand vaccination

‘Supplementary culling’ follows a four year cull licence for a cull area and is usually carried out by ‘controlled shooting’ methods. This means that culling in any area can continue, with little to no monitoring for up to nine years. The grounds for this new legal challenge fall into five areas, including:

The case seeks to show that continuing the supplementary cull policy (which is not supported by the available evidence) is not rational and should be phased out by gradual replacement with vaccination as the government’s own review detailed.

Defra is also failing to apply a two year break in culling or a move to vaccination in 50% of the post intensive cull areas, despite recommendations to do so in the Sir Charles Godfray TB Policy Review and public statements claiming the government is phasing out badger culling in favour of vaccination.

Low Risk Area culling

Low Risk areas form all areas of the country that are not considered to be high risk or edge areas (between the two). The Next Steps policy seeks to cull in these areas, wherever ‘epidemiological evidence’ suggests that there may be a reservoir of the disease in the area. In practice*, this means wherever badgers are present and the source of repeated breakdowns has not been identified. The Godfray Review made clear that poor tests are missing large reservoirs of disease in the cattle herds themselves.

Despite this, evidence from Cumbria suggests that Defra is carrying out proactive type culling in the low risk area that does not even conform to the evidenced approach of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) and has no basis in veterinary science. A widespread adoption of this type of culling in low risk areas might result in permanent collapse of the badger population across many areas of England.

Environmental Impact Assessment

Defra is failing to carry out an appropriate assessment of the impact of badger culling under the Habitat and Species Regulations 2017.

Over the last three years, Tom Langton has led two legal challenges against the government, supported by The Badger Trust and the Badger Crowd.

His first challenge in 2017 against Defra exposed the fact that supplementary culling may hold no value at all in the fight against bovine TB (bTB) in cattle potentially making eradication of the disease more difficult, with no way of directly measuring whether it works or not. The second case required Natural England to concede a national breach of duty, regarding monitoring the potential impacts of culling on internationally important nature areas where culling has been allowed.

Although failing to bring an end to supplementary culling, the two legal challenges have enabled a deep insight into secretive government planning and have exposed areas of deficiency including the experimental and poorly monitored nature of the government’s interpretation of legislation, protecting badgers and natural communities.

The latest legal challenge in 2020 is again supported by the Badger Trust and the Badger Crowd.

Badger Trust

Dominic Dyer, CEO Badger Trust said: “ In the past, The Badger Trust has taken legal action preventing badger culling in Wales and has fought a number of legal actions in the High Court since 2013 seeking to stop or limit the cruel, destructive and unnecessary killing of our iconic badgers in England.

We welcome the involvement of Wild Justice to the cause of badger welfare and support their efforts. The legal case we have helped to fund this year with Tom Langton is equally important and we hope that they both get permission in the weeks to come so that non-lethal bTB control methods in badgers prevail, as the Sir Charles Godfray bTB policy review expert panel has recommended” .

Wild Justice

Dr Mark Avery from Wild Justice said: “We’re very grateful to over 1100 individual donors who have funded our legal challenge. We wish Tom Langton and the Badger Trust all the best with their separate legal challenge. Badgers are wonderful creatures and they need all the friends they can get these days.

We believe Gandhi was right to say you can judge the greatness of a nation by the way it treats its animals, and by that measure Defra and Natural England are doing a very poor job.”

* Critical evaluation of the Animal and Plant Health Agency report: ‘Year End Descriptive Epidemiology Report: Bovine TB Epidemic in the England Edge Area – Derbyshire 2018’

Further Information:

The Badger Crowd

Crowdfunder link and information on case here:

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/help-stop-defra-plans-to-extend-badger-culling/

Blogpost here:

https://thebadgercrowd.org/blog

Wild Justice

Extract of Wild Justice pre-action letter to Natural England

https://wildjustice.org.uk/general/extracts-from-our-pre-action-protocol-letter-to-natural-england/

New Legal Challenge Against Badger Culling

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First of all, a huge congratulations to Wild Justice for reaching the funding target for their latest legal challenge on the humaneness of the free shooting of badgers as licensed by Natural England. Follow @WildJustice_org on Twitter, or sign up to their newsletter on the Wild Justice web site to receive email updates with the latest news about the case. It is fantastic to see widening support for the fight against badger culling and we will be in regular contact with Wild Justice as the cases develop.

There is no doubt about the intensely cruel aspects of the culls, but they are also flawed for a range of technical and legal reasons. With support from The Badger Trust, Tom Langton is now launching an appeal for a new legal case challenging aspects of failed, incomplete or irrational consideration in Defra’s ‘Next Steps’ 5th March policy guidance. Problems include the ignoring of key recommendations of the 2018 ‘Godfray report’, and the confining to a minor role of badger vaccination, both now and in the future. Additional grounds  relate to unaddressed consideration of ecological impacts of wildlife disturbance upon designated nature reserves.

It is important also to challenge the more recently and newly-invented approaches to badger culling in the Low Risk Area (LRA) of the north and east of England. In Cumbria, cattle brought over from Northern Ireland a few years ago with the bovine TB 17z strain have infected badgers locally. Here there is no restraint to the number of badgers killed. The approach shows the frightening sign of badger massacres to come, as alluded to in the 2020 policy if this approach cannot be stopped.

The poor epidemiology and the speculative ‘risk pathways’ approach of the Animal Plant and Health Agency add up to a policy out of control that must be halted. The licenses issued this June should be revoked and no new licenses issued this year, including for Derbyshire where culling was prevented last year.  The policies should be withdrawn and rethought over a minimum two-year cessation period with advice from stakeholders who have been overlooked.

Otherwise badgers face an unprecedented slaughter over the next two years and beyond, with the door to prolonged mass killing (as in R. o. Ireland since 2004) opening up and no mechanism in place to bring it to an end. These terrible policies must be challenged. Please help us try to help the badgers and promote effective approaches to bovine TB control with a donation if you can. Thank You.

Donate

 

Wild Justice Joins Badger Cull Legal Fight

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It is excellent and very welcome news that the formidable force of Wild Justice is today announcing a legal challenge to welfare aspects of the highly controversial English badger culls. The challenge against Natural England and Defra is that the badger cull does not meet acceptable animal welfare standards.

Despite the long term failure of Defra’s Bovine tuberculosis policies to bring about any significant decline in the disease, badger culling has accelerated over the last twelve months. Recently Defra Minister George Eustice confirmed the government’s wish to spend the next two years killing record numbers of our iconic protected species.

The planned Appeal for the new case/s being brought by Tom Langton against the new (March 5th 2020) bTb policy is poised to launch shortly. We encourage everyone in the Badger Crowd to get behind both appeals to ensure they are fully funded and successful.

You can get details of the Wild Justice Appeal here.

Badger Culling – just 5 days to Court of Appeal Hearing

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Next Tuesday July 2nd at last sees  aspects of Supplementary Badger Culling and Habitat Regulations Assessment  of badger culling under review by the Court of Appeal, nearly a year since the cases were first heard in the High Court. We are hopeful that further scrutiny will finally show the full merits of our arguments.

This time there are three Judges. There are parts of last year’s submissions to work through and  new supporting submissions.  So far the case is listed for one day but the exact timing, court number and judges are yet to be revealed.

The Hearing will be televised:

https://www.judiciary.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/court-of-appeal-home/the-court-of-appeal-civil-division-live-streaming-of-court-hearings/

From submissions made by Defra and Natural England for these appeals, and from other exchanges of correspondence it is clear that the intention is to continue to increase badger culling this year and beyond. Yet despite monitoring the general trend in bTB in each cull area, senior  government sources also confirm this week that there will be no absolute indication of whether badger culling is contributing to bTB control or not.

The arguments put forward by government show intent to continue badger culling long into the future. This despite the fact that bTB was tackled effectively, with a 80% decline over four years in the 1960s. Shockingly, their justification still references badger killing in the Republic of Ireland, where no relationship between badger removals and bTB change has ever been established. The claims from government scientists are frankly astonishing.

Government intends to continue culling badgers until bTB is eradicated from cattle, but even any theoretical benefit from badger culling cannot materialise until the disease is rigorously addressed in cattle. Put another way, even if badger cull could help reduce bTB slightly, it cannot while disease in cattle is inadequately addressed by failing testing.  This was actually known from the start. Killing badgers has always been pointless, with no meaningful contribution.

It is obvious from the ‘Godfray Review’ in 2018 that the scientists actually know that badger culling is not a significant component of the policy, and indeed has no little or no value in bTB control. This was one message at this week’s  meeting ‘Tackling Bovine TB’ at  the TB Advisory Service Conference in Cirencester, while others preferred sticking to the doomed government line. Effective cattle bTB testing, movement control and strict biosecurity are the measures that will deliver significant bTB disease control benefit.

We can only hope that the writing is on the wall now for the expensive, cruel, useless badger cull and that precious public resources will be directed to where they can be effective in the future.

Fundraising income to help fund legal costs for these appeals has been a steady trickle, and all who have so generously contributed cannot be thanked enough.  The need remains to continue to challenge bad badger culling policy and bTB control. Several decisions to be taken on the way forward are dependent on the outcome of the appeals, but it is not clear exactly how long any new judgement will take.