Category Archives: science of bTB

Chief Vet’s targeted badger cull plans finally scrapped

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The ‘targeted’ badger culling proposals of the last Government are rejected by the new Labour Government but the ‘ineffective’ badger culls still continue, pending a further Review.

Lawyers acting for Secretary of State for Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)  Steve Reed, have responded to ecologist Tom Langton’s Judicial Review Application [AC-2024-LON-002292] against a ‘future of badger culling’ Consultation (here) prepared by the previous administration. Specifically, the March 14th Consultation had proposed a new wave of ‘targeted‘ badger culling across England, killing many thousands of badgers each year, potentially until 2038.

The controversial proposals were promoted by the Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss’s disputed beliefs that badgers play a central role in the spread of cattle TB, the science of which Langton, with other veterinary experts has challenged in recent years (here).

Defra have confirmed their decision not to proceed with proposals to introduce and license targeted culling across England. Defra had received multiple objections to the Consultation as well as support for proposals to better identify cattle disease risks that will still go forwards. The response indicates that the Secretary of State will instigate a fresh review of future bovine TB policy.

The welcome news signals a shift from previous policy but is bitter-sweet, with the news that a new badger cull area is being planned: Cumbria’s Eden valley South of Carlisle and to the east of Penrith under a Low Risk Area  (LRA) policy licence. Communications have been sent to Tony Juniper at Natural England objecting to the consideration of any new LRA licence, on scientific grounds, but so far there has been no substantive response, with a failure to curtail culling licences that are ongoing from before the general election.  It is expected that Natural England will reauthorize licences for over 20 intensive culling areas agreed under previous policy arrangements that many think should also be cancelled. These are in addition to those completing supplementary culls, meaning up to 20,000 badgers will be shot at night over the next twelve weeks with a percentage dying slowly from shot wounds in ways found cruel by a government appointed expert group in 2014.

Concerns remain that despite withdrawing the cull consultation proposals, the Defra’s response leaves some important question unanswered. This includes speculation in a heavily disputed recent Animal and Plant Health Agency report. Further, the Defra response to the economic aspects of culling states that the costs of badger culling may not outweigh the economic benefits, a point of interest in the Government spending rounds in the coming months.

Tom Langton said:

“This is a small but important step towards bringing forwards the abolition of badger culling forever.  Labour has previously stated that culling is ineffective and now the Government has scrapped a Consultation that claimed culling worked. But it is shameful that the Labour administration is continuing the badger culls and expanding them in the Low Risk Area, contradicting its manifesto pledge, to appease a vocal minority based upon old scientific rhetoric and dogma.

Bovine tuberculosis is a disease of mammals needing expert measures that have been neglected for reasons demonstrated in the recent BBC documentary LINK charting the work of Brian May and the Save Me Trust with farms in England and Wales.

Badger culling must stop, but most of all a new testing regime for cattle is needed to give farmers the powers to use the right tests at the right time to beat TB in the herd where a hidden reservoir remains. Something that red tape presently prevents and at massive unnecessary cost to the taxpayer. It could be resolved in an afternoon with the right people around the table. I urge Defra to listen to us as they have promised and to meet with my team to help formulate new policy.”

Langton added;

Meanwhile, I would also very much like to thanks my legal team: Lisa Foster and Hannah Norman at Richard Buxton and Richard Turney and Ben Fullbrook at Landmark Chambers and with Dominic Woodfield from Bioscan as expert witness on the ecological impacts issues. And last but not least all of the Badger Trusts, Groups, Charities  and generous individuals around Europe who have combined to form the Badger Crowd. With the specific aim of creating a voice for and to bring justice to the fight for truth surrounding badger culling. With a key role played in recent months by Protect the Wild, promoting awareness and fundraising.”

Further information

Defra’s decision was made on 23rd August, the date the BBC documentary of Brian May’s research was first screened (watch here), showing the inadequacies of the current cattle testing system.

The Defra response does not address the ecological impacts issues correctly and does not even seem to understand the challenge relating to protected species away from designated nature areas. Dominic Woodfield comments:

“Defra’s acknowledgement that the scientific, ethical and economic justifications for the extirpation of tens of thousands of badgers annually since 2013 have collapsed, is welcome but long overdue. It is tragic that it has needed the pressure of repeat litigation by Tom and others, the publication of competing science exposing the fallacy of blaming and slaughtering wildlife for a disease rooted in poor livestock management practices and failures of animal husbandry, and a change of the party in Government for them to finally concede the point.

Even now, Defra continue to disregard the wider ecosystem level effects of removing an apex predator from wide swathes of England – we may never now know what impacts this has had (and continues to have) on our native wildlife and declining species. Tom’s and others’ persistence in the face of obduracy, reliance on poor science and the making of decisions based on the political clout of those lobbying for the status quo, is extraordinary and commendable, but it is also fuelled by the long-held conviction that they were fundamentally right. There are a very small and diminishing number of hiding places left for those who’ve pinned their reputations and careers on badger culling as being a rational or effective answer to the bovine TB problem.

 

More or less? Truth, life and 56%

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August 2024

In life generally people crave the truth, learn from the truth and act on the truth. Truth is the universal source for learning, where trust develops, and where solutions to tackle the myriad of challenges that life throws at us are fostered.

Yet, we all know that absolute truth is a fickle thing. As time passes, new insights evolve, things change. Gradually we may find that what we thought we knew is conditional on certain things, right only some of the time, or even wrong for a clever reason.

So care is needed, especially with the big decisions where large amounts of money, time and effort are employed to address a particular issue or problem.

Take for example the culling of badgers. A Government expert [1] concluded 20 odd years ago that a very small trial study [2] suggested badgers might spread bTB to cattle, especially if frightened away from the setts where they live, and shooting them would help.

Sounds ridiculous? The entire livestock industry eradication policy in GB and Ireland has been based around ‘badger blame’ for the spread of Bovine tuberculosis among cattle herds for two decades. There has been over £2 Billion of subsequent spending and hundreds of thousands of badgers have been culled around a truth that is now uncomfortable to lose, because so many people have enthusiastically believed and embraced it. They own it, and accepting it is wrong messes badly with what they have said and done over the last 20 years.

The matter came into sharp focus in March of 2024, just weeks before the general election was called, with a Government Agency staff academic paper on badger culling effort [3] in England since 2013. This, followed shortly by a DEFRA Public Consultation [4] aimed at extending badger culling for a decade or more, over further huge areas, but with even fewer constraints on when, where and how.

To the general public this is all a mystery. Surveys show that the public largely think that badger culling ended in 2020 when Government said it was ‘phasing it out’, and the new government’s election manifesto view [5] that it has been ‘ineffective’ means it will stop for good. But actually, in the cold night air, from Cornwall to Cumbria, guns with silencers are steadily slaughtering tens of thousands of badgers each autumn. As harvest 2024 is concluding, the culling is now ramping up yet again.

So what about the truth? Well Steve Barclay MP, the old Defra Minister, one of the few seniors to keep his seat during the Labour landslide, had claimed in an ebullient foreword to the March consultation, that a 56% benefit has been gained after four years of culling badgers down to under 30% of their numbers.

So let’s unpack the truth in that. Firstly, the key time marker in all this is 2016 when the first of ten large cull areas were all up and running and followed by around 60 more at a starting rate of around ten a year. Unfortunately for unpicking science and truth, this was also the time that more intensive cattle testing began ramping up. So telling between the effect of culling and testing is not possible, despite what Barclay claimed.

‘Ah’, say the boffins at the Government Agency for badger culling. ‘But without killing badgers, the cattle tests wouldn’t work so well.’

At this point most people switch off….’ I dunno…suppose it’s possible…I’m not that interested  actually….’ It’s one of those speculation moments that is only so interesting given that the facts and alternatives are beyond the non-specialist’s reach and require weeks of fact-checking. This is indeed a complex issue, even for interested parties to consider.

So where did Barclay’s view come from? Well, back in 2012 the coalition government encouraged an academic paper in 2013 [6] that was timed to support badger culling, and that printed its truth, as a part of the justification for mass badger  culling. The paper said a few things that we now know were right and wrong thanks to good old Captain Hindsight.

Right, was that the old small study had been rendered meaningless by a horrendous Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in 2001 [7] that mucked up the experiment’s need for ‘stable countryside’ to be able to monitor change in three of the ten areas – enough to spoil the results. The hapless NFU encouraged rapid restocking with untested TB infected cattle, firing up the bTB epidemic.

Wrong were the calculations that rested upon a belief that cattle do not give bTB to badgers. It was thought to be TB moving all one-way, from badger to cattle, that Defra believed in those days, something that was always suspicious and that modern studies now show is wrong [8-11].

And questionable too was a theory, to try to make the numbers add up in a way no one has ever explained and that looks implausible. That theoretical infections going from badger to cattle are somehow passed on more rapidly than those originating from cattle. Baffling?

Lost already? Well to make the old small study work, the boffins believed that while around 94% of disease was the result of cattle-cattle infection, around 6% was down to badgers. Unfortunately, wildlife groups have believed and utilized these figures, despite warnings, not realising it is part of a dubious study that blames badgers and the king pin in justifying the badger culls since 2013. The so called ‘onward transfer’ of infection from badger to cattle is akin to a biblical myth with no scientific legs, yet it became the truth that key people in Government believed. It was held up as the science to believe in, forming and promoting the badger cull policy. Most cull objectors had realised this by 2016.

Back to Barclay’s 56% and the boffins new paper in March 2024. Despite elaborate graphics, this was a pretty rough-and-ready analysis, looking at before and after culling and substantial cattle testing improvements in the first few years of application, and attributing the decline in herd TB breakdowns to a combination of badger culling and herd testing. It stated (twice) that it is not possible to say which factor caused the change. Yet in a discussion of the results it also said the results were consistent with effects of badger culling seen during the small study, and studies using the small studies assumptions, and this speculation found itself in the paper summary (abstract) at the front.  This now gives an opportunity for apparent disease benefit to masquerade as fact or truth. Hence Barclay and the National Farmers Union ramped up the rhetoric on ‘Badger Culling Works’, and quoted the 56% benefit as a function of badger culling. Not bTB control – the better description of the mix of things being tried. Without evidence. Sunak picked up the mantle and did the same in a shed with farmers shortly before he lost office at the general election.

But the truth, as pointed out by other senior academics observing, is that these public statements were untruthful. Change might or might not have been assisted by badger culling – the very question the small RBCT study 20 odd years ago was supposed to resolve when it came up with a split answer – it possibly does and it possibly doesn’t. Flip a coin. And the real truth is that badger culling could be having some effect or it might all be down to tougher testing and movement control. Saying badger culling helped from 2013 or was pivotal or a catalyst is a bit like any of the innumerable causation arguments that created problems in science before they were recognized for what they were during the 1960’s [12].  Association is not the same as causation. Would anyone propose that Donald Trump being elected as President in 2016 caused bovine TB to start to fall? Well it happened at the same time, and bTB has come down since………..Or was the fall in TB the result of a general switch to tougher testing?

The problem for truth in this case is that Governments need to make decisions, and where there is uncertainty they need to have a plan. But Government scientists presenting their opinions as fact, for politicians and stakeholders to believe and to repeat, is a deception. A dangerous step and something that needs weeding out by journals employing peer-reviewers. And hopefully not by mournful inquiries years later, charged with working out how it all went wrong. The problem here is that there are few people experienced enough to understand and judge boffin science, and so you find your mate reviewing your work, and you review your mates work, and bad habits develop. Bovine TB science is plentiful and this syndrome sees awkward material published quite often; it provides a good exemplar of the issue called the reproducibility crisis [13]. All the Government scientists need to say is we ‘think’ it might be working because…. that is a long way from saying it ‘is’ – think snake oil salesman. It matters, it matters a lot when lots of lives and money are at stake. It matters because lying to the public is undemocratic and wrong.

So if someone asks you about badger culling, you might just say – ‘well its complicated and I don’t know.‘ But if they pick up a gun to shoot a badger, you might just say ‘hang on – I think you might be breaking the law’. Which requires evidence, and sufficient clarity that mass killing badgers to prevent the spread of bovine TB can be justified. And after 20 years there is no truth to suggest it does, only guesswork. However, cattle testing and movement control has worked in England and Wales without badger culling, so using that proven remedy is justified with some confidence and is an honest approach, if truth be told.

References

1. King, D. 2007 Bovine tuberculosis in cattle and badgers. A report by the Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, to the Secretary of State for Defra on 30 July  2007. 

2. Donnelly, C. A. et al. Positive and negative effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle. Nature 439, 843–846 (2006).

3. Birch, C. P. D. et al. Difference in differences analysis evaluates the effects of the badger control policy on bovine tuberculosis in England. Sci Rep 14, 4849. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-54062-4 (2024).

4. DEFRA 2024 Bovine TB: Consultation on proposals to evolve badger control policy and introduce additional cattle measures. A consultation exercise contributing to the delivery of the government’s strategy for achieving bovine tuberculosis free status in England..

5. Labour Party manifesto https://labour.org.uk/change/        

6. Donnelly, C. A. & Nouvellet, P. The contribution of badgers to confirmed tuberculosis in cattle in high-incidence areas in England. PLoS Curr. 10, 5 (2013).

7. Private Eye 2001 Special Report. Not The Foot And Mouth Report. London

8. Biek R, O’Hare A, Wright D, Mallon T, McCormick C, Orton RJ, McDowell S, Trewby H, Skuce RA, Kao RR. Whole genome sequencing reveals local transmission patterns of Mycobacterium bovis in sympatric cattle and badger populations. PLoS Pathog. 2012;8(11):e1003008. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003008. Epub 2012 Nov 29. PMID: 23209404; PMCID: PMC3510252.

9. Crispell J, Benton CH, Balaz D, De Maio N, Ahkmetova A, Allen A, et al. Combining genomics and epidemiology to analyse bi-directional transmission of Mycobacterium bovis in a multi-host system. Elife. 2019;8

10. Akhmetova, A; Guerrero, J; McAdam, P; Salvador, LC; Crispell, J; Lavery, J; Presho, E; Kao, RR; Biek, R; Menzies, F et al. 2021. Genomic epidemiology of Mycobacterium bovis infection in sympatric badger and cattle populations in Northern Ireland. bioRxiv 2021.03.12.435101; doi: https://doi. org/10.1101/2021.03.12.435101

11. van Tonder AJ, Thornton MJ, Conlan AJK, Jolley KA, Goolding L, Mitchell AP, Dale J, Palkopoulou E, Hogarth PJ, Hewinson RG, Wood JLN, Parkhill J. Inferring Mycobacterium bovis transmission between cattle and badgers using isolates from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. PLoS Pathog. 2021 Nov 29;17(11):e1010075. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1010075. PMID: 34843579; PMCID: PMC8659364.

12. Hill, Austin Bradford. “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58 (1965): 295.

13. Baker, Monya, 2016, “1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility”, Nature, 533(7604): 452–454. doi:10.1038/533452a

 

 

Brian May – The Badgers, the Farmers, and Me

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Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers, and Me’ is a documentary that was aired on BBC2 at 9.00pm on Friday 23 August, and is now available on the BBC iplayer. Filmed over 4 years, the programme charts Brian May’s journey as he explores the ongoing battle against bovine tuberculosis, and the differing views of both farmers and those who oppose badger culling .

The new film covers 12 years of practical research ongoing over the last 12 years. The shocking truth around the monumental failure of Defra to effectively address the problem of bovine TB  is highlighted, and the resulting tragic slaughter of both cows and badgers is revealed with horrible clarity.

Animal campaigner Brian May and Anne Brummer, CEO of May’s Save-Me organization, have spent the years since culling was first mooted by David Cameron’s government uncovering the truth about bovine TB. Rather than fighting the farmers, May and Brummer have looked at the problem from the viewpoint of the farmer and the vet , following a case study which has transformed a chronically infected cattle herd into a healthy herd with TB-free status. This was achieved without killing a single badger. The revolutionary methods used are now known as the Gatcombe strategy.

Meanwhile, over the same period, nearly a quarter of a million badgers have been killed on the basis that they spread bTB to cattle. This new documentary shows that the badger cull policy implemented since 2013 has failed farmers completely. Rates of bTB infection and consequent numbers of cattle slaughtered are in some areas no better, and in others worse than ever, following the cull. The work from the case study farm in the documentary clearly shows with that blaming badgers has been a wildly incorrect reading of the facts.

May and Brummer conclude that the very idea that badgers are part of the bTB re-infection process is unsupportable. Government and NFU policy has been based on the work of a small number of scientists who have persisted in claiming disease benefit  from  statistical models, ignoring the uncertainty around them, and doubling-down when challenged.

This new documentary is the first time that an alternative view about badger culling has been presented in documentary format. Do watch it for a sincere, refreshing and honest take on badger culling. It goes to the heart of the problem, and shows compassion for the farmers, the cattle and badgers. And it provides answers and a way forward. Congratulations to all involved.

 

RBCT uncertainties debate gains momentum

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On December 13th 2022, a preprint was put up on the ResearchSquare platform. Entitled ‘Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle’ [1], it was a reanalysis of the Randomized Badger Culling Trials (RBCT). Following a protracted period of review, with a number of very long silences, and relatively few revisions, it was published in Nature Scientific Reports on July 15th 2024 (Torgerson et al 2024) [2]. Finding a major anomaly, it uses a range of statistical models to re-examine the RBCT data  and concludes that most standard analytical options did not show any evidence to support an effect of badger culling on bovine TB in cattle.

Torgerson et al 2024 [2] noted that the statistical model selected for use in the original study in 2006 [5] was one of the few models that did show an effect from badger culling. However, various model assessment criteria suggest that the original model was not an optimal model compared to other options available. You can read a short blog on the new Torgerson et al paper here, and the full paper is available here. Essentially, the more appropriate models in the latest study strongly suggest that badger culling does not bring about the disease reduction reported.

Following publication, the new analysis [2] was mentioned in an article in Vet Times on July 24th, and in Vet Record in their 3/10 August edition. Neither publication noted its major significance. No other mainstream media reported on it at all. This is perhaps surprising since the government badger cull policy rests all but entirely on the conclusions from the RBCT. It is the science that DEFRA has used in court to defend their decisions to experiment with culling. It is the science that has resulted in 11 (12 including 2024) years of intensive and supplementary badger culling across huge areas of England, and around 230,000 dead badgers. In other words it is the pivotal piece of work for the decision-making around badger culling policy.

The reluctance of the media to report further on Torgerson et al. is a prelude to work by two of the authors of the original 2006 analysis (Christl Donnelly and Rosie Woodroffe) together with a DPhil Statistics student at Oxford University (Cathal Mills), who had, at the time of publication, two rebuttal papers in press with Royal Society Open Science [3,4]. Unusually, the abstracts and supplementary information for these new papers were posted online and available to view before publication without the main text. Enquiries regarding the posted information and the main papers resulted in in press versions being helpfully forwarded. The new analyses from Mills et al. are entitled An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and  analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) I: Within proactive culling areas [3], and  An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial II: In neighbouring areas [4].

Published on August 21st, the two new papers largely duplicate the analyses in Torgerson et al 2024, but use different model assessment criterion to come to a different conclusion. In fact they double-down on the conclusions of the original 2006 analysis: “…we estimate substantial beneficial effects of proactive culling within culling areas, consistent with separate, existing, peer-reviewed analyses of the RBCT data.”

So in the year and a half since the posting of the Torgerson pre-print [1], Mills, Woodroffe and Donnelly have been working on their rebuttal to it. Torgerson and his team have looked through the in press versions of the Mills et al (2024) publications [3,4] for a few days and multiple problems stand out. In particular:

  1. Incorrect statements regarding disease control outcomes since 2010
  2. Use of a non-peer reviewed publication
  3. Confusion between the offset and overdispersion leading to incorrect calculation of disease exposure
  4. Incorrect and confused statements regarding model comparisons
  5. Exaggerated claims during use of new modelling.
  6. Failure to address the modern interpretation of SICCT test reactors
  7. Failure to recognise the onward effect of the analytical failure on multiple subsequent publications and policy outcomes.

Somewhat unusually, the new Mills et al papers do not refer to or cite the published Torgerson et al paper [2], only the first pre-printed version of Torgerson et al. from 2022 [1]. So in essence, the new Mills et al papers [3,4] are out of date at the time of publication, failing to refer to the updated 2023 preprint or the final version in  Scientific Reports published 15th July 2024 [2]. Following contact with the Royal Society, a response raising concerns with the newly published papers is being written and will be submitted shortly. An interim report has been put together by Torgerson and Langton with brief observations on the new papers (see here).

The Royal Society says it is committed to reproducibility. Reproducibility is the ability of independent investigators to draw the same conclusions from an experiment by following the documentation shared by the original investigators [6]. The issues identified in [2] and “rebutted” in [3,4] illustrate one of the major issues of the reproducibility crisis: poor statistical inference. It is hoped that the conclusions of this exchange will inform future bovine TB intervention policy this autumn.

References

[1] Torgerson P, Hartnack S, Rasmusen P, Lewis F, Langton T. 2022 Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle. In Review. (doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2362912/v1)

[2] Torgerson, P.R., Hartnack, S., Rasmussen, P. et al. Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle. Sci Rep 14, 16326 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-67160 (available: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-67160-0)

[3] Mills CL, Woodroffe R, Donnelly CA. 2024,  An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) I: Within proactive culling areas. R. Soc. Open Sci. (doi:10.1098/rsos.240385)

[4] Mills CL, Woodroffe R, Donnelly CA. 2024, An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial II: In neighbouring areas. R. Soc. Open Sci. 11:240386.

[5] Donnelly CA, Woodroffe R, Cox DR, Bourne FJ, Cheeseman CL, Clifton-Hadley RS, Wei G, Gettinby G, Gilks P, Jenkins H, Johnston WT. Positive and negative effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle. Nature. 2006 Feb 16;439(7078):843-6.

[6] Gundersen Odd Erik 2021The fundamental principles of reproducibility. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. 37920200210

 

 

Why are we waiting?

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Things are starting to become slightly clearer as we near the point of discovery over the future of badger culling in England and beyond. Consultees to the online Defra Consultation  questionnaire of 14th March were told this Monday (5th August) that an analysis of Consultation responses will be published in the autumn (Sept-Nov?) giving more time for policy development without badger culling. But there is no reason now to delay clarification on the big 56% lie surrounding the ineffective badger culls.



 

Notably, the NFU appeared fully taken in by the spin from the Animal and Plant Health Agency paper by Colin Birch and Defra, that badger culling ‘is working’. Birch et al. follows on from a paper published in Veterinary Record in 2022 that showed quite neatly how recorded bovine TB levels (recorded OTF-W incidence)  peaked after the introduction of annual tuberculin testing in 2010 and began dropping in the High Risk Area from 2013 in some counties and generally by 2015. And, at a steady rate that did not increase once badger culling started (and that was more widespread from 2018), showing no evidence that badger culling had contributed to a slow decline of around 6% per year. 

Steve Barclay, and previous Environment Ministers before him, had made wild claims of a culling benefit of around 50%, based on APHA parroting the claims made since the 1970s that this is the badger contribution to cattle TB. This has always been a poorly evidenced, lame and far-fetched claim, making a mockery of professional epidemiology.

Not to be fooled, Labour are onto the problem and have firmly labelled badger culling as ‘ineffective’ in their manifesto. They have highlighted the need to work with farmers and scientists which is now the helpful – but not very specific – new Defra mantra.

The Birch paper makes it quite clear in two places that the cause of the welcome decline in bTB first identified formally in 2022, cannot be attributed to any particular intervention, be it better testing, different tests and more frequent tests, better biosecurity or badger culling. It is just a crude before-and-after effort with no controls, showing what was already known in a slightly clunky way. This is no help at all, as Professor Macdonald at Oxford pointed out in his November 2023 ‘state of the science’ review. However, the unfortunately misleading abstract for the Birch paper transmutes opinion into ‘fact’, to give the casual  reader a misinformed overview of the findings. How very CVO.

So what are we left with as we approach the time of Labour’s big reveal this month? Firstly, an increased interest in badger vaccination with Defra organising a media spree with its dutiful contractors to suggest a direction of travel that Natural England seem to think is appropriate.

Also, news from Oxford, where a 50,000 signature petition to the School of Biological Science, organised by the Oxfordshire Badger Group calling for increased academic engagement seems to be working. A response to the Torgerson et al. 2024 paper on the choice of models for analysis of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial data, published  recently in Scientific Reports is imminent. The Torgerson paper wallowed rather oddly for 18 months in peer review, emerging little changed, so plenty of time for the RBCT folk to have prepared.

How the 50 something % cull benefit lie has been peddled in recent months and years:

Farmers Weekly: Badger culling policy reduces cattle TB by 56%, study shows 

Farmers Guardian, Farming matters: Lord Robert Douglas-Miller – ‘The science is clear that the tide is turning on bovine TB’ 

Shrewsbury Conservatives, DANIEL KAWCZYNSKI MP MEETS WITH MARK SPENCER, THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOOD, FARMING, AND FISHERIES, URGING HIM TO TAKE TOUGHER ACTION TO REDUCE CASES OF BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS:  

Parliamentary Question response from Mark Spencer: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the (a) effectiveness of badger culls in tackling bovine TB and (b) reliability of the TB test used to identify cattle for slaughter; and what estimate her Department has made of the (i) annual cost of bovine TB in Shropshire and (ii) level of bovine TB in that county. 

 

Natural England’s rationale for licensing ineffective Supplementary Badger Culling

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Peter Brotherton, Director of Science at Natural England, issued his “Advice to Natural England’s Operations Team on Supplementary Badger Culling 2024” in April 2024, see here. It was released under Freedom of Information at the end of May.

So how is supplementary culling being justified?

Brotherton considers that the ‘key insights’ arising from his appraisal are that “disease reduction benefits to cattle achieved through badger culling are sustained in the long term (likely at least 7 years post-cull).” And what is this based on? Brotherton says:

“The most relevant evidence to the current English situation is from Donnelly (2013) who found from the Randomised Badger Control Trial (RBCT) that the disease reduction benefits from four years of intensive culling of badgers are greatest 1-2 years post-cull and are sustained for at least 7 years, albeit at a diminishing level over this period.”

Professor Paul Torgerson, Chair, Veterinary Epidemiology, University of Zurich

The problem for this justification now, is that Donnelly (2013) (an unpublished report) is overturned by the new peer-reviewed paper by Torgerson et al (2024). Published since Brotherton issued his advice, “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” has shown that the original RBCT analysis (Donnelly et al 2006) used an inappropriate calculation of rate, when face value calculation of rates was available. When rates are calculated in the standard way, no effect of culling was found. Many subsequent studies, like Donnelly & Nouvellet (2013) which recycle the approach of that analysis should now be considered unsafe. There are dozens, possibly hundreds of them.

Brotherton also references two small studies, Byrne et al 2014 (4 areas in Ireland) and Clifton-Hadley 1995 (2 areas in south-west England) which he acknowledges may be less relevant to the current English context. They are too small in scale to be able more than anecdotal or provide any certainty. They certainly should not be used as substantive evidence.

And that seems to be pretty much it in terms of published evidence. There is some speculation without evidence. There is a mention of badger vaccination reducing the prevalence of bTB in badgers, but any assumption of this reducing disease in cattle is not based on sound evidence. It should be noted that Natural England keep away from their ‘Uncertainty Standard’ that they previously reported as scrapped, but now seem to want to retain .. its all a bit uncertain at Natural England.

Notably, Brotherton does not refer to the main peer-reviewed and published badger culling  analysis Langton et al (2022) in his ‘rationale’, presumably favouring the Chief Vets unqualified comments. This compared culled and unculled areas after 7 years of industry-led badger culling (2013-2019) and found no measurable benefit.

Also of note is Brotherton’s recollection of the advice of the previous Chief Scientific Advisor Prof. Boyd, who “stressed the limits in the evidence base and the importance of adjusting the policy as new evidence becomes available.“ There is no sign that the evidence of peer-reviewed Langton et al (2022) and Torgerson et al (2024) is being recognized by NE yet.

Badger Crowd understands that Natural England have received a letter requesting that supplementary badger cull licences should be revoked on the basis of new published science. It’s well past time to stop the badger cull immediately on the scientific evidence, and not least the comprehensive peer-reviewed evidence.

Oxford – we have a problem……………50,000 people think so

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On Thursday 18th July, as Keir Starmer visited Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the Oxfordshire Badger Group (OBG) presented a petition, with over 50,000 signatures to Oxford University School of Biology in central Oxford.

OBG called on Oxford University to own what it called “YOUR FLAWED SCIENCE” and asked them to “SPEAK OUT AGAINST BADGER EXTERMINATION.”

OBG press statements say that Oxford University is the birthplace of the Badger Culls. Scientists from Oxford, with others, designed, conducted and analysed data from the original Randomised Badger Culling Trial (1998-2005). It is the findings from this trial that DEFRA has used to claim that badgers have a substantial role in spreading bovine TB (bTB), and to justify killing badgers on an industrial scale. Since 2013, over 230,000 badgers have been slaughtered, most of them completely healthy adults and cubs. Cull zones now cover much of the west and central England. Badger populations are reported to be close to local extinction in some areas. Over 60% of Oxfordshire is covered by various cull areas, along with neighbouring counties, infected in more recent years by careless cattle movements.

Oxfordshire Badger Group say it has been pleading with Oxford scientists over the past year to use their influence in the badger cull debate. But the School of Biological Sciences has declined to engage in meaningful way, snubbing any chance of a serious dialogue.

OBG representatives said:

“We ask them to speak out against the misuse of their research. Keeping silent on one of the major animal welfare issues of the day is not scientifically principled. It allows DEFRA and Natural England to ignore new evidence and keep on culling regardless. Their silence is deadly for badgers, does not help farmers or cattle and is condemned by many members of the public. Our petition and open letter “Oxford University’s Scientists Must Speak Out Against Badger Extermination” now has over 50,000 signatures.”

The university scientists have said in correspondence that they have ‘no appetite’ to revisit the RBCT in the light of new evidence. They refuse to engage in what they see as a political rather than a scientific debate, which it is not – it is a scientific debate. Yet this is a pivotal moment. DEFRA are considering moving to ‘targeted culling’ with no credible evidence other that its’ pilot cull in Cumbria has failed.

The new Labour government manifesto states that badger culling is ‘ineffective’, yet is still allowing it to continue, even as government-funded scientific evidence against culling piles up. DEFRA’s own scientists analysed the overall impact of implementing a range of bTB control measures (cattle measures and badger culling combined). They did not find clear evidence to link culling badgers to a reduction in bovine TB (see section on Birch et al here). Yet the paper by Birch was widely and incorrectly reported as showing that culling badgers had reduced the incidence of bTB by 56%.

In April 2024, Natural England’s Director of Science advised against issuing supplementary cull (SBC) licences stating “Over the past few years, the balance of evidence has shifted….” and “….. farmers can avoid the considerable expense and inconvenience of undertaking the SBC without increasing the risk of their cattle suffering from bTB”. Officials overruled this advice and badgers are now being killed over the summer (including we believe Oxfordshire Cull Zone 49 which already had completed 4 years of intensive culling).

Professor David MacDonald reviewed the evidence base for the current cull policy for the Badger Trust in November 2023. He concluded “in 2023, much as in 2007, it is hard to see that killing badgers will make a meaningful contribution”. Sadly, his fellow scientists have chosen not to support this narrative.

An important new paper, “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” by Torgerson et al raises serious questions over the validity of the methods used to analyse the RBCT data. This study re-examined original RBCT data using a range of statistical models. It found that the RBCT analysis chose to use one of the very few models to show that culling had an effect on bTB herd incidence, and not in the way the paper had actually reported. The new paper concludes that the RBCT results are not reproducible and “there was insufficient evidence to conclude RBCT proactive badger culling affected bTB breakdown incidence”. In other words, the original Oxford study that underpins culling badgers is fully compromised. 

The RBCT was a politically charged, high profile research project that ran for 8 years and cost UK taxpayers ~£49 million. Perhaps the worst transgression in science is when you don’t admit that you are fallable. If you do admit oversights or mistakes, you are a good scientist. Badger Crowd supports OBG in calling for Oxford Scientists to pursue scientific rigour in acknowledging the new understanding of the science that has developed over the last few years and that changes the narrative. We ask that they join us in calling for an immediate end to the badger cull as they did in 2012 before it started and in 2015 before it was rolled out. Why not now, at the time when they predicted it would fail?

Eileen Anderson OBG Trustee said:

“It is horrible knowing that innocent badgers are being killed across Oxfordshire, in contradiction to the science and with so little concern for their lives or the survival of a native mammal.”

Linda Ward  OBG Trustee said:

“The scientists were reluctant to openly challenge the former Conservative governments pro-cull policy. But to continue to keep silent in the face of the emerging new evidence would be inexcusable and call their scientific integrity into question. In my view they need to either publicly defend their RBCT or accept that it’s findings are flawed.”

Julia Hammett Chair of Trustees said:

“Oxford University’s research has enabled the cattle industry to kill 230,000 badgers. DEFRA is openly ignoring the scientific evidence that culling is not associated with a measurable reduction in bTB. The eminent scientists who led the RBCT must demand that the government returns to robust, evidence based policies.”

Please speak up Oxford University. It’s well past time to stop the cruel, wasteful useless badger cull.

New scientific paper shows that the badger cull was never going to work

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This website has been reporting on the legal challenges to the badger culling policy and licences, and the science that has supposedly supported it since 2019. Over that time, there have been many jaw-dropping moments; government interference in peer-reviewed science, government scientists getting their data wrong in published letters, Natural England claiming that culling has no effect on ecosystems and then desperately covering their tracks in the courts. The list goes on, and the story that has unfolded remains  truly shocking.

Professor Paul Torgerson, Chair, Veterinary Epidemiology, University of Zurich

But an even more dramatic sequel to this long-running saga is the new scientific paper published this week in Scientific Reports by Professor Paul Torgerson and colleagues including Badger Crowd’s Tom Langton. We will be posting a video presentation that will put this new work into context and demonstrate the massive impact that it should now have on Government bovine TB policy.

Why is this new study so important?

Because the government badger cull policy rests all but entirely on the conclusions from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT). It is the science that DEFRA has used in court to defend their decisions to experiment with culling. The study is the original  peer-reviewed science that claims badger culling can reduce bTB in cattle; many subsequent studies are derivative from it, use the same flawed methodology, or suffer heavily from confirmation bias. I.e. they are subjective opinion that fails to prove that culling badgers causes disease reduction. However, benefits are claimed from culling when any benefits are, in reality likely from cattle measures. This is because such benefits are “predicted” from the results of the RBCT.

What does the new study say?

The new study re-examines data from the RBCT experiment using a range of statistical models. It concludes that most standard analytical options did not show any evidence to support an effect of badger culling on bovine TB in cattle. The statistical model selected for use in the original study in 2006 was one of the few models that did show an effect from badger culling. However, various criteria suggest that the original model was not an optimal model compared to other analytical options then available. The most likely explanation for the difference in result from the different analyses is that the RBCT proactive cull analysis ‘overfitted’ the data and used a non-standard method to control for disease exposure. The result is that the original model had a poor predictive value, i.e. it was not useful in predicting the results of badger culling. The more appropriate models in the latest study strongly suggest that badger culling does not bring about the disease reduction reported.

How might the RBCT scientists defend their decisions?

  1. The RBCT was a pre-planned analysis i.e. data was analysed in the way they said it would be before they started the trial, so it can’t be questioned.  This is not the case. There was a loosely described plan to compare rates of disease between culled and unculled areas. Their published analysis in fact compared counts of disease between culled and unculled areas. Would the conclusion of the RBCT analysis have been different  if incidence rates had been analysed correctly? Yes it would. Even if the data had been analysed according to any ‘pre-plan’, this would not preclude subsequent re-analysis using correct and more appropriate methods, except you might not do it if you believed rates had been used as was suggested in the paper.
  2. There is nothing wrong with using the model to calculate the number of herds (exposure). There may be circumstances in which a model may be sensibly used to calculate exposure. However, the original model used suggests that bTB herd incidents (a standard measure of new disease) is independent of the number of herds in a study area. That is, if the number of  herds in an area is doubled, the incidence does not change. This is not credible. Not least because the RBCT report (Table 5.4) showed that breakdowns doubled in cull and control areas over the period of study.
  3. You are just model dredging; i.e. you are just picking out the model that says what you want. The new study re-examined RBCT data using a range of statistical models (22 in total). Most of these show no evidence to support an effect of badger culling on bTB in cattle. The statistical model chosen by the RBCT study was one of the few models that did show an effect, but when tested in an accredited way, it is not an optimal model. The new paper is not guilty of  “model dredging”, it is the result of an attempt to find a robust analytical method that could support the claims of the RBCT

Why has this not been picked up before?

It does seem remarkable that the original RBCT a) got through peer review, and b) has not been challenged since. One reason might be the rather casual use of the words ‘rate’ and ‘count’ in the original paper, which implies that rate has been used in the model, whereas in fact an epidemiologically non-standard method was used to calculate a rate. Supplementary information in the original paper showed standard calculated ‘rates’ and the assumption could have been made that these were what was used in the model. They were not.

Interestingly, in the journal Biostatistics in 2010, two authors of the 2006 paper discussed approaches to using a range of statistical methods on a data set to compare their performance, and the choosing of a planned statistical approach that best complimented the subject matter.  They proposed that selection of a specific statistical approach may involve ’subtle considerations about the interplay between subject-matter and statistical aspects and the detailed nature of the data and its compilation.’ And with respect to the peer-review of results, they contend quite boldly: ‘the suggestion of requiring independent replication of specific statistical analyses as a general check before publication seems not merely unnecessary but a misuse of relatively scarce expertise.’

This may go some way towards understanding how problems with the original analysis were not picked up for such a long time. And it goes some way to explaining why there is such a reproducibility crisis in science.

The paper is open access. You can read it here.

Natural England refuses to stop licensing the badger cull

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Badger Crowd can today reveal a letter from Natural England, stating that despite the sickening killing of over 230,000 badgers since 2013, the Natural England Board intends to continue with the failed and ineffective badger culls across England over the next two years. This despite the change to a Labour Government. In its years in opposition, Labour pledged to end the badger culls. But instead, around 100 adult and young badgers on average will be shot every day between now and January 2025 under the direction of the NE Board who control the plans.

Steve Reed, new Environment Secretary for Labour has inherited the disastrous badger culling legacy

This was revealed in a letter repeating much of the material provided in a freedom of information release in May showing  how Defra want to keep culling to appease the livestock industry and because they think badger culling ‘works’. This is despite the complete  lack of supporting evidence, and with strong evidence to the contrary. Indeed, the new government called the badger culling policy ‘ineffective’ in its manifesto.

The old government position relies on the lies of Defra over the ridiculous, unprofessional, and discredited speculation that badger culling  has been shown to bring about a 56% reduction in bovine TB breakdowns (see ‘TB Testing and Transmission’ letter in Vet Record on Friday).

This is almost as ludicrous as the claim in 2013 that helped to start badger culling in the first place, i.e. that half of cattle-to-cattle breakdowns originate from badger infections – one of the great mysteriously uncontested travesties of modern veterinary epidemiology. It is based on flawed opinion and flawed analysis, promoted by government scientists and contractors to support government policy.  The result has been to support the vested interests that have dominated for two decades. But there was a clear-out at the political level on Thursday night in the 2024 General election.

While dozens of pro-blood sport MPs have lost their positions, entrenched civil servants are no doubt striving to bolster positions they have defended against public interest as a result of tribal behaviour (see here and here), by using the fear-factor that has characterised bovine TB policy.

Notably, Natural England speculate in their letter on how long it might take Defra to gear up for badger vaccination – another cattle disease reduction folly  – and talk about a supposed gap between hypothetical benefit effects that have not been shown to exist. Tainted science, based on poor advice.

These plans to continue culling are now under legal scrutiny. Badger Crowd calls on the new government to stand up and be counted on its promises, and not duped by the range of bad advice, information and opinions floating around from those with a conflict of interest and confused stakeholders. It’s time for the badger culls to stop

Legal pressure grows as end to ineffective badger culls anticipated

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This week yet more legal action is underway, seeking to end the failed badger culls. A Judicial Review Pre-Action Protocol Letter was sent to Natural England by the Badger Trust and Wild Justice,  challenging the issue and authorisation of 26 supplementary badger culling licences in mid-May of this year. This follows the shocking content of Freedom of Information releases obtained in May showing communications between DEFRA and Natural England since April of this year.

This action adds to two other ongoing judicial challenge applications, one of which was lodged today in the High Court, in relation to the recent consultation on the future of ‘badger control policy’ by Defra. This challenge claims that the Defra Consultation to introduce 100% badger culls (of a kind trialled in Cumbria since 2018), under control of the Defra Chief Vet, was unfair when it misrepresented scientific fact about badger culling efficacy to consultees. Other flaws are also highlighted in the challenge.

So how will things play out in the days and weeks to come?

Opinion polls now suggest a Labour government may be in place on Friday 5th July with a substantial majority of MPs in Parliament. Those following the history of badger culling could have expected that a swift and decisive end to the cull would be implemented with an incoming Labour government. A number of Labour MP’s and Shadow Ministers have stated that this is Labour’s intention in recent years. The Labour Manifesto launched last month stated that the badger culls have been “ineffective”, something that makes culling unlawful under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, confirming that position.

However, last week Shadow Environment Minister Stephen Reed, who has recently been in meetings with the National Farmers Union, threw a surprise question mark over this on BBC Farming Today by saying there would be no ’hard stop’ to badger culling. The implication is that culling could continue for a further two years under existing licenses for Intensive, Supplementary and Low Risk Area culling in England. A terrible prospect for killing protected wildlife with its known inefficiency. How could that be possible?

Dynamics for new Government making the right decisions next week?

There are currently three legal actions underway.

Challenge 1. from Stephen Akrill.
Seeking permission for Judicial Review at the Court of Appeal.

A  legal challenge against badger culling in England was made in a personal capacity by Stephen Akrill from Derbyshire, against the Secretary of State (S/S) for Defra Steven Barclay. With a Judicial Review claim lodged on 14th November 2023, Barclay’s second day in office, Akrill is challenging the historic decision of SSEFRA from 2012 to issue licences to kill badgers under section 10(2) (a) of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. The claim is that the S/S has acted upon flawed scientific advice that badger culling could influence the  spread of disease.  Akrill is seeking a quashing order to revoke all licences for badger culls issued by the Secretary of State. With a request to stay extant licences issued by the Secretary of State to kill badgers in 2024, pending the outcome of his application for Judicial Review.

This was the latest JR concerning badger culling since the judgement in Northern Ireland earlier this year where DAERA were ruled to have consulted unlawfully on a plan to mass-shoot badgers, and where detailed justifications were wrongly withheld. In short, this new JR claim contends that there is inadequate evidence to indicate that culling badgers can influence the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle.  The RBCT experiment was done under Crown immunity despite the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. This, argues Akrill, did not make any subsequent act of killing badgers lawful. While the 2006 RBCT paper was called the established science, Akrill’s argument also is that scientific protocol dictates that science only becomes  ‘established science’ once it is shown to be reproducible, not simply because it has been published. This is the science reproducibility argument.

At the Court of Appeal in London in mid-May, Akrill argued that culling badgers by industry without clear reason, and effectively as an experiment,  was potentially a criminal offence. Akrill gave two recent examples where evidence suggested  non-reproducibility of the RBCT experiment and suggested that the industry led culls had been unlawful from the start of in 2012. Thus, he claims the rolling offence was an error on the part of the decision maker each time culling had occurred, as decided by the S/S, and so remains unlawful.

A related argument was that scientific opinion does not constitute science – specifically it does not overrule the basic premise that science should be reproducible to be safe. On that basis, the Defra CSA and CVO opinion on recent evidence is not sufficient for the S/S to base decisions on. The case continues, and now due to the snap election, will apply to the incoming Government.

Challenge 2. from Tom Langton supported by
Badger Crowd and Protect the Wild.
Challenge to the March 14th consultation on targeted culling.

This is a legal challenge to the Defra consultation on targeted badger culling proposals that ran from March 14th to 13th May 2024.

A PAP response was received from Defra in mid-June and the case application was lodged at the High Court today, 3rd July. It challenges the fairness of the consultation on three Grounds:

1) that it made misleading claims preventing intelligent consideration
2) that it omitted key information on ecological impacts and
3) it omitted information on the likely economic benefits of the proposed policy.

The government’s position has shifted from saying badger culling caused the disease benefit in cattle, to one where they think it helped, but the detail is fuzzy and not backed by evidence. This is not a good position for the government who needed to come up with some evidence that killing 230,000 badgers (and counting) was worthwhile. They have failed to do this due to weak analysis and are now called out for exaggerating to the public.

Challenge 3. from Badger Trust and Wild Justice.
Challenge to the authorisation and reauthorisation of Supplementary Badger Cull (SBC) licences.

The pre-action letter challenges the SBC licences that aim to shoot thousands more badgers from 1st June 2024 and in the next six months of the new Parliament. Also next year  between June 2025 and January 2026. This is more and more ineffective culling of tens of thousands of mainly completely healthy badgers for no good purpose.

Based on the information obtained by Tom Langton from Natural England this May, Badger Trust and Wild Justice have together sent a pre-action protocol letter to Natural England and the Secretary of State for Defra to stop the supplementary badger culls continuing.  This year, as usual, the supplementary culls started on 1 June. The challenge aims  to stop the cull immediately because the advice of Natural England’s own Director of Science (not to cull badgers) was wrongly overruled. The action could lead to the two organisations applying for a full Judicial Review. Natural England has been given until 15 July 2024 to respond and to halt the 26 supplementary culls.

The view is that Natural England, led by Tony Juniper and the Natural England Board, were wrong to overrule Director of Science at NE Peter Brotherton, who felt SBC could no longer be justified. Release of crucial information showed how a Defra official had pressurised NE with advice from  Animal And Plant Agency’s Christine Middlemiss (the Chief Veterinary Officer), to carry on culling in order to meet cull company and livestock industry expectations, and to sustain the so-called benefits that Defra have failed to show exist. The fundamental reasoning behind the decision was inadequate and unlawful.

Why a ‘hard stop’ to badger culling is actually warranted now

The time is right to bring an end to all badger culling.  As things stand, Natural England may also maintain its plans to continue to ‘cull by stealth’ this year (as it has done for several years) using ‘cull extensions’ to kill more and more badgers over hundreds of square kms, by secretly expanding the edges of existing cull areas. Further, in mid-August 2024, just six weeks away from now, over 20 further areas of 4-year culls could be re-authorised by Natural England for the autumn bloodbath to continue.

Scientific analysis has shown these intensive culls to be ineffective. There is no better time for a full-stop, and a new policy to be formed with a change of approach.

What about industry objection to culling ending?

Back in 2019, the government took a decision to stop the first Derbyshire badger cull before it started due to inadequate preparation on the distance standoff between badger culling and badger vaccination areas, that had not been properly thought through. NE paid compensation to the cull company involved for late notification of that decision. However, when NFU took High Court legal action against the government over the decision, the judge indicated that the government had a political prerogative to take such a decision.

A decision to cancel the culls in 2024 would surely follow the same outlook. And in any case, compensation paid to farmers for loss of set-up costs would be less than the cost of government spending on managing ineffective  culls. It would ultimately be a logical, cost-saving decision preventing waste and cruelty.

While the new government might be wary of not doing what some pro-cull rural voters want before an election, there are many more voters (rural and non-rural) who oppose culling, and who will support bringing it to an end. It is true that badger culling retains heavy support amongst niche livestock sectors, fuelled by government misinformation as to its value. The new NFU President has re-iterated his views on the need for badger culling to continue. But this support is misplaced, a result of a relentless campaign of poor information aimed at blaming for badgers for a significant role in the spread of bovine TB, based on weak and misquoted science. The position of Labour on the science of badgers and bTB is likely to consolidate with investigations into maladministration since 2010, and that is what should follow the decision to end badger culling for good very soon. In which case these costly legal actions need not proceed.

PM Sunak contradicts his legal position on badger culling. Further Labour comments reported too.

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On 18th June, the BBC ran a story about Rishi Sunak on the election trail at an event In North Devon, where he was asked a question about his intentions concerning badger culling, should he remain Prime Minister.

Badger culling was not mentioned in the Conservative manifesto, but he laid his cards on the table, answering “culls have to be part of the solution”. The BBC wrote, “Mr Sunak said bTB outbreaks are at their lowest in 20 years and “part of that is because of the success of the badger culls.” The statement was confirmed by a video tape released by Farmers Guardian on the same day.

Sunak went on to say that “badger culls have brought down TB by just over 50%. That shows that the culls are working.” This despite the ink being hardly dry on a legal letter from Defra admitting that decline in TB cannot be attributed to badger culling and that not too much should be read into the Secretary of State saying so in the foreword of the recent consultation! This is a key point in the legal challenge that will move forwards shortly.

The current Government badger culling is based on the APHA’s publication Birch et al. (2024), published February this year. However, Mr Sunak is wrong to attribute reduction of disease incidence to badger culling. The new publication does not do this. Authors of Birch acknowledge (on careful reading) that the overall result cannot be attributed to badger culling: all disease measures implemented, including extensive testing, were analysed together. Crucially the expected comparison of culled and unculled areas was missing making the study of low or arguably no inference, given there was also some key missing information and over-simplifications. It is more likely that the cattle measures are causing reduction in disease than badger culling, because decline began well before culling was rolled out and in response to the introduction of annual SICCT testing in 2010. Other cattle-based  measures were also introduced alongside culling.

Likewise, the BBC which has extensive ‘previous’ with mis-reporting of the badger culls, was wrong to state (again presumably from Birch et al) that badger culling cut bTB breakdowns by 56% after four years. A 56% reduction cannot be attributed to badger culling, as explained above, because that study was not designed to and was incapable of asking that question.

Mr Sunak said the Conservatives were “the only party at this election” committed to maintaining the cull. If this is the case, his seems to be the only party prepared to consistently misinterpret the science and misinform others about it.

Today the I News has mentioned what Labour might do, claiming culling might not be ended this year and also misquoting the Birch paper – you can see what a good job the government have done on fooling the media – good evidence for the legal challenge to the Consultation.

The outlet teased:

“i understands a Labour government will not interfere with existing contracts to carry out culling“

and that a Labour spokesman said:“

“The next Labour Government is committing to ending the badger cull and eradicating TB. We will work with farmers and scientists to introduce a TB eradication package rolling out vaccination, herd management and biosecurity programs to protect farmers’ livelihoods so we can end the killing of badgers.”

Is this a row-back on the earlier statement about the cull being ineffective? Difficult to say without clear evidence. What can be said is that a letter was sent today to Natural England and Defra asking for the the May licences and authorisations to be immediately revoked and for intensive culling to be ended too. After all, if they are ineffective as stated last week, they are unlawful.

Defra’s zombie killing machine won’t stop

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DEFRA don’t want to vaccinate badgers, they want to keep killing them, against advice from Natural England.

As the first badgers of summer 2024 are being killed outright by a shot to the heart, or scream and die slowly in pain, a Freedom of Information response released on 31st May has revealed a morass of Government confusion. Communications between Defra and Natural England  from April and May of this year show DEFRA contriving to carry on culling. By aligning with the views of its highly controlled ‘BTB Partnership’, and stalling the promised badger vaccination programme, that they have had four years to prepare for.

Dr Peter Brotherton’s (Director of Science at Natural England) advice in April, (see here), a response by Defra in early May (here), and final decision by NE (here) tell the story. NE’s response to the recent policy consultation (here), is also very revealing. Brotherton gives NE’s view on Supplementary Badger Culling (SBC) that are done after 4-years of Intensive culling, is that badger vaccination should be the best option to promote, based upon his view of the available scientific evidence :

“I can find no justification for authorising further supplementary badger culls in 2024 for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease and recommend against doing so.”

However, on 1st May, Sally Randall who is the Director General for Food, Biosecurity and Trade for DEFRA responded saying:

“The experience of the last three years has shown that whatever changes are made to disease control, those most affected by the disease, must have confidence in both the process and the trajectory. Changes need to be carefully timed and communicated, whilst balancing a range of potentially opposing views. Any abrupt changes to policy would seriously undermine our ability to engage constructively with the industry on future disease control interventions.”

The letter included an Annex A. with advice from APHA and the Chief Veterinary Officer, stating that Defra’s view was that SBC should continue until badger vaccination was fully viable, and that would take an unspecified amount of time. DEFRA said it had not gone far enough with preparations and that there was no financial capacity to promote it. They implied that farmers didn’t want it either. Then just two days later on 3rd May, Oliver Harmar, Natural England Chief Operating Officer, responsible for badger cull licensing at Natural England, decided to grant nine new Supplementary Badger Control licences and to authorise seventeen existing SBC licences in 2024, the decision having been passed by Tony Juniper and the NE Board. The licences were issued around mid-May.

But of equal importance, Brotherton made the following remarks:

“As I have said in previous advice, much greater effort is needed to raise awareness of the disease reduction benefits of the alternatives to culling among the farmer community, in my opinion. In this regard, it is disappointing that the recent publication by Birch et al. 2024 has been widely reported as providing evidence that badger culling reduces the incidence of bTB by 56%, when in fact the study shows the overall impact of implementing a range of bTB control measures, not culling alone. Further research to establish the relative disease reduction contributions of the different control measures is needed.”

This of course is the point made problematic by the crude and misleading ‘Abstract’ at the start of the APHA draft report (here) and following on with the published version (here). The recent Defra consultation on introducing so-called ‘targeted culling’ claimed that badger culling was responsible for herd incidence reduction, although it had no evidence of this. Brotherton is therefore disappointed by Steve Barclay, the Secretary of State for Defra and Defra Minister Douglas Miller and previous Defra Ministers. They have all seriously misled the public with badger cull claims and this is now a matter for legal consideration. Reductions in herd breakdowns could all have been down to tighter cattle testing and the accepted published peer reviewed and uncontested science on changes to herd incidence peaking and falling before badger culling was rolled out – and shown at the County level (2013-2019) suggests that this is most likely the case (see Langton, Jones and McGill 2022).

In previous High Court challenges over the future of badger culling, the ruling has been that decisions on culling can also be political decisions. If the future of badger culling is to be based on the science, then we will be seeing an end to culling very soon. Intensive, Supplementary, Low Risk Area, and Targeted culling are mistakes that should, and will be seen as such, and confined to the past.

While the disease benefit of badger vaccination is (like badger culling) not proven, the benefits of tighter cattle testing are well established. It is cattle measures done properly that will deliver the much needed bovine tuberculosis disease control for Britain and Ireland.

On 5 July the new Government must focus on advanced cattle testing, quarantines and lockdowns and consign badger culling to history, where it belongs.