Brian May – The Badgers, the Farmers, and Me

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.

 

Two bits of news………..

Permission  granted for Judicial Review of aspects of  the 2020 “Next Steps” bTB eradication policy


On 9th May, the Court of Appeal granted permission for a Judicial Review, with a ruling by Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Bean. The Ground of challenge approved for scrutiny concerns a decision made by the Secretary of State George Eustice in February 2020, just after he took over from Theresa Villiers. In March of that year he signed off a “Next Steps”  policy to continue culling badgers.

The legal challenge maintains that the new policy was formed without adequate regard to conserving biodiversity, as is required by duties under section 40(1) of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act 2006. These duties are far ranging and relate to protection and recovery of biodiversity in England. Not just specific duties to internationally protected species and sites. The case has been brought to the courts by ecologist Tom Langton, following a grant last year from the Badger Trust to help instigate challenges against the new policy.

Very many people have been concerned about how removing badgers from county wildlife sites and fields, woodlands and quiet corners in the landscape influences nature on a local level, especially as the policy has moved towards 100% eradication of badgers locally. The  new proposals promote the further phasing in of ‘reactive-style’ culling as a full replacement towards the end of the decade to the current intensive and supplementary culling approach.

A legal letter sent to Natural England (NE) has made it clear that they should not issue any badger culling licences this year as a result of this ongoing oversight. It is an omission  that has been persistent since 2013 and it is now part of a complaint accepted at the Council of Europe’s Bern Convention.  An urgent  Court hearing is being sought for this June.

Legal wheels turning again with new pre-action letter

The second matter relates to a previous Badger Crowd blog introducing analysis of official data from 2010 to 2020. Figures released on 10th March of this year complete the data for four full years of culling over six areas. The data  shows no significant difference in bTB levels between areas culled and those unculled since culling began. Further data from each of the main High Risk Area counties is consistent with cattle measures gradually becoming effective before badger culling started.

Bovine TB breakdowns (herds bTB Free status withdrawn) peaked and was in  decline before badger culling became widespread. A detailed report on this data has been sent to Defra and NE as new findings. What more evidence could NE want that badger culling is unsafe under Section 10 of the Badgers Act 1992?

NE have released, under Freedom of Information request, documents showing how far badger culling has drifted from policy science (The Randomised Badger Culling Trials: RBCT). Culling rules now move closer to a free-for-all, with culling over wider areas for longer and with new speculative methods. Immediate concern relates to ten potential badger cull areas that could be licensed for intensive culling for four year culls, starting this September, with a further ten next year.

All of this legal work will require funding to pursue and coffers are nearly empty. There is need to gear up for some emergency fundraising over the next few weeks and reach out widely to gain support. Please look out for a crowd funding link and for information on where donations can be sent. It is hoped that supporters can once again rise to the challenge and give badgers a chance to roam undisturbed across the fields and woods of England.  We will continue to seek justice in the best interests of badgers, wildlife, farming and the public.  The bovine TB crisis must focus on the cause of the problem; the spread of disease amongst cattle.

Natural England keep supplementary culling, despite Gloucestershire bTB spike

Yesterday was a surprising day. In the morning lawyers for the claimant received a letter from Natural England, here, saying they had not yet decided whether to re-authorise the supplementary badger cull licenses in 2019. They claimed that “the representations made in your letter regarding the effectiveness of supplementary culling may be considered by the decision maker in the context of the re-authorisation decision.” They said that “ judicial review is therefore premature and we invite you to await our further correspondence on this issue.”

We didn’t have long to wait. Just a few hours later, we received a letter from Defra with news that the cull licenses had been authorised, coming into effect immediately with letters of authorisation from Natural England placed on the Defra web pages dated 12th June. Word from the field comes that pre-cull activities started earlier in the week so when was the decision to issue actually made?

At the bottom of their letter Natural England said “…Natural England does not accept the allegation in your letter that it acts “under dictation” from DEFRA.”

Events suggest that the first letter was written at the same time the decision to issue the licences was made. What should we make of these two letters? Does it look like two separate hands on the wheel?

This morning a response was made by the Government Legal Department to the claimant’s pre-action letter regarding a request for supplementary badger culling to be suspended. More on this later.

 

Supplementary culling licences – update

Hours after receiving this letter from Natural England, comes  a letter from Defra saying that the supplementary culling licences have been authorised in Gloucestershire and Somerset.

So it appears that the challenge to the supplementary culling licences was not premature after all?

What is going on at Natural England?  

Natural England’s new authorisations allow the killing of up to 540 badgers in Gloucestershire Pilot Area 1 and 578 in Somerset Pilot Area 2.

Supplentary culling licences

Yesterday the claimants legal team received an email from Natural England’s solicitor in response to the pre-action letter. The letter says that Natural England have not yet made a decision on whether to re-authorise the supplementary badger cull licences for Areas 1 and 2  (Gloucs and Somerset) in 2019. Presumably the same applies to Area 3. (Dorset) which has had 4 years of culling and is now a candidate for supplementary culling. NE says that ‘’representations made in your letter regarding the effectiveness of supplementary culling may be considered by the decision maker in the context of the re-authorisation decision.”

This doesn’t sound like much of a concession yet, but at least Natural England are actively considering new information and evidence. NE know that their licensing decisions are being carefully scrutinised, and they know that the science is uncertain.

Please help to continue the calls for more openness on environmental information, data and the decision-making processes of badger cull licensing, and to highlight the lack of evidence for the policy as a whole.

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Another magnificent contribution

Badger Crowd is delighted to report that the fantastic trustees of Badger Trust Sussex have yet again made an extremely generous donation to the legal fighting fund. This is great news for our fundraising efforts, and further compounds our determination to continue to judicially defend the badger against bad decision making and procedure. Thanks go out to the BTS trustees and volunteers who have been at the forefront of making this possible.

With just six weeks to go we still need a considerable sum to cover essential costs, and we hope that BTS’s donation inspires other groups and individuals to join us! We are indebted to all our generous donors, and continue to work towards fully funding our cases. Together we are stronger. Together we strive to bring #justiceforbadgers.

To contribute towards our legal funds you can donate through our Just Giving appeal here.

Licensing Question: whose job to monitor the Predators and Prey?

An article in the Farmers Guardian (17.05.19) reports on certain conditions which Natural England are attaching to this year’s badger cull licenses as a result of legal challenges. The action in 2018 relating to 2017 licences was against Natural England’s omission of  proper process in scrutiny of potential ecological impacts and did not particularise the method or manner of scrutiny or gathering of essential information beyond the normal accepted confines of the licensing system.

Although dispute resolution talks have being held with Natural England over the last few months, the detail and nature of the new licensing requests on predators and prey to cull companies have not been discussed. They are nevertheless consistent with the Natural England internal guidance developed last autumn.  It would seem that the cull companies have been contacted regarding the normal requirements  necessary to ensure that the Carnivore Release Effect (CRE)  resulting from the 70%+ removal of badger populations can be recorded, with emphasis on, but by no means limited to both breeding bird and fox numbers.

Referring to a condition requiring the monitoring of fox numbers, Tom Rabbetts, head of TB delivery at the NFU is quoted as saying “When the cull companies were set up, this was certainly not a requirement. They have not recorded this data and they do not have access to every person controlling foxes in the area.”

He also questioned why cull companies were being forced to carry out the work when fox control was not part of their remit and NE has responsibility for collating data on wild bird populations. Normally in activities that cause or may cause impacts to SSSIs and European sites and species, the applicant is responsible as standard, both for provision of baseline information and for carrying out avoidance, mitigation or compensation activity.

This would include the monitoring of the effects of badger culling on breeding birds, roosting birds, butterflies, small mammals, other invertebrates and habitats that could be influenced by sudden reduction in higher trophic species, either immediately, or over a period of time for more subtle changes. The Badger Crowd believes that the ecological consequences of the removal of badgers could potentially be enormous, and thus far have not been measured.

New Natural England ‘Guidance on evaluating the ecological consequences of badger culling on European Sites’ here, issued within weeks of the judgement on the Judicial Review in 2018, suggests that the ‘trophic cascade’ effect from badger culling may potentially result in a requirement to control the number of other carnivorous species, including stoats, weasels and even hedgehogs. The Badger Crowd believes this is correct recognition of the huge potential impact of badger culling on wildlife sites of national and international importance and the countryside in general. Such impacts need investigating as a requirement of statute and must be taken as seriously as any other threat, such as road building.

Badger Crowd is seeking solutions to bovine tuberculosis for farmers and wildlife. We believe that badger culling is not an acceptable or effective solution and that impacts upon the environment are just one of the major issues that act against the interest of the countryside, taxpayers and farmers. It distracts from the real needs for better cattle testing regimes (including a halt to the misuse of and over-reliance upon the SICCT test) and the stopping of daily transportation of diseased stock around England. Immediate reform of poor veterinary advice and a compensation culture resting on public funds that further accentuates the problem is urgently needed.

Natural England ‘don’t have a clue’ as NFU rejects data gathering.

In an article by Rachel Salvidge, published by the ENDs Report on 13 May here,  Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, MP for the Cotswolds is reported to have said the idea that the badger cull increases fox numbers is “flawed” . Cull companies were being asked for data that they “don’t have because they hadn’t been asked to collect it”. He is quoted as saying that for the badger cullers: “it’s an absolute nightmare… the hoops they have to go through,” and that the demand is “another example of Natural England not having a clue about what goes on on the ground”.

In a statement, the NFU said: “We feel that any area that accepts a licence condition to undertake the control of foxes would not be in a position to do so. As a limited company they are not set up to undertake these actions and are not technically in a position to enforce it.”

Clifton-Brown describe the side effects of badger culling as a “ploy by conservationists to stop the cull”, adding that “people’s livelihoods are at stake.”

 

Another generous donation….

The Badger Crowd had a major fundraising boost  this morning with a generous £5000 donation from a past donor. Now with permission to appeal aspects of last year’s cases, and Court dates of 2/3 July, we have a vital (and possibly last) opportunity to oppose the Secretary of State’s approval of Supplementary Badger Culling and Natural England’s dubious approach to eco-impact assessment. Find out more about other our other current and potential challenges by reading ‘Our Legal Cases’. Please take action and donate now if you can. Tell your neighbours, friends and family. We must make every effort to stem the tide of blood that is the unethical, unscientific failed English badger cull, based on flawed epidemiology.

THANK YOU TO ALL THE GENEROUS DONORS IN RECENT WEEKS. YOU ARE PART OF THE BADGER ARMY.

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