Important New Parliamentary Petition

A new parliamentary petition has been launched by Protect the Wild. It states:

The Government’s TB Eradication Strategy allows the continued killing of badgers, a protected species, until the end of this Parliament, despite the Labour manifesto calling the cull “ineffective.”

We believe the badger cull is unjustified and must end.

Some research has suggested culling results in a reduction in bovine TB (bTB) in cattle. However, there are concerns about the methodology used. Other research, which has been peer reviewed and published, shows no evidence that culling badgers reduces confirmed bTB in cattle. Over 230,000 badgers — many healthy — have been killed, disrupting ecosystems without solid scientific justification.

We call for an immediate end to the cull and the implementation of cattle focused measures to control bTB, rather than what we see as scapegoating wildlife.

We fully support this petition and would encourage you to add your name. Encourage others who care about badgers, effective disease control and the correct interpretation of science to sign too. Let’s see it reach 100,000 signatures & get a parliamentary debate.

 

Add your name here.

 

 

APHA’s Edge Area Bovine TB Epidemiology Reports for 2023

How’s it going?


The quotes in the table below are taken from the APHA county epidemiology reports recently released. Progress is clearly not on target. As seen in Oxfordshire (see here), bTB in the Edge Area is not being addressed with sufficient resources or the right approaches. The lack of adequate testing is so glaringly obvious it is beyond belief that this situation is being allowed to continue. The bovine TB eradication policy is in tatters not just in the HRA and LRA but in the Edge Area too.

 

County

Progress

Going Well?

Berkshire

“Looking at the recent trend, the likelihood of achieving a herd prevalence of less than 1% OTF-W incidents in Berkshire by 2025 is low.”

No

Buckinghamshire

No prediction

?

Cheshire

“..the prevalence (4.4%) in 2023increased marginally compared to 2022. OTF county status will not be achieved by 2025,but with the use of all available tools to identify and to reduce the burden of infection, it might be possible to achieve OTF status by 2038.”

No

Derbyshire

“Based on current information, achieving OTF status is not conceivable for Derbyshire by 2025. Residual infection continues to be a problem in Derbyshire. The reasons for this are unclear, may be multi-factorial, and is likely to include herd type, wildlife populations, farming practices and proximity to the HRA county of Staffordshire.”

No

East Sussex

“The increase of prevalence rate from 2022 in addition to the geographical extension of the endemic area (HRA prior to 1 January 2018) suggests that East Sussex will not be able to achieve OTF status by 2025. The prevalence and incidence will need to have a considerable reduction through the next 10 years to ensure that OTF status in the county could be reached by 2038.”

No

Hampshire

“The likelihood of achieving a herd prevalence of less than 1% OTF-W incidents in the county by 2025 is low.”

No

Leicestershire

“Although the herd incidence declined again in 2023, it is unlikely that Leicestershire will achieve OTF status by 2025.”

No

Northamptonshire

“Despite the declining herd incidence and prevalence trends over the last 3 years in Northamptonshire, it seems unlikely that the county will be eligible for OTF status by 2038.”

No

Nottinghamshire

“Additionally, prevalence in Nottinghamshire at the end of the reporting year was 1.7%. It seems unlikely for Nottinghamshire to become eligible for OTF status by 2025, as set out in the strategy for achieving OTF status for England, published in 2014. However, if the disease trend continues to decline as a result of effective disease control measures it is possible Nottinghamshire will achieve OTF status by 2038.”

No

Warwickshire

“Official-TB-Free status (OTF) for Warwickshire will not be achieved by 2025, as set out in the ‘Strategy for Achieving OTF Status for England’, published in 2014. However, progress is being made and the outlook is positive.”

No

 


Recurrence

Recurrence’ is where bovine TB returns to a herd after a period when it has not been detected by periodic testing. Recurrence is the result of residual infection, ineffective testing and cattle movements, (with the odd unevidenced nod to wildlife). Recurrence is now recorded consistently across the Edge Area and the High Risk Area, and it is the reason why the Edge Area is unlikely to be TB free by 2038. APHA diverted gamma testing in 2021 to herds with a history of recurrence and persistence, at the same time reducing parallel testing of gamma alongside the skin test in OFT-W (Officially TB Free Withdrawn) herds, resulting in early undetected disease remaining in herds throughout the Edge Area.

It’s interesting to note that ‘Overall Recurrence’, ie recurrence during the herd’s lifetime, has been added to the recently published epidemiology reports (see below). Previously, recurrence has only related to the previous 3 years.  ‘Overall Recurrence’ reflects the true seriousness of the epidemic. 

And alongside the reality of the problem of Recurrence, the APHA are still blaming badgers for significant disease transmission without evidence, and still claiming disease benefit from badger culling without evidence. 

APHA’s ‘Edge of Disaster’ Area

Bovine TB failings in Oxfordshire and beyond in 2023

The “Year End Descriptive Epidemiology Reports” for  Bovine TB control were published by APHA online on 24th October for the Edge Area counties of: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

The report for Oxfordshire is the most extensive of the county reports (see here).  What does it tell us about the progress made on bTB control as measured by cattle herds withdrawn (so-called ‘confirmed’ breakdowns) in Oxfordshire? And what does it tell us about APHA’s approach to epidemiological standards?  It looks like they are still blaming wildlife by default………….

Ups and Downs

In Oxfordshire, following a continual decrease in OTF-W (Officially TB Free Withdrawn) breakdown incidents since 2018, the number of incidents rose from 31 in 2022 to 41 in 2023, which is similar to the numbers of incidents in 2020 (47 OTF-W). The number of OTF-S (Officially TB Free Suspended) incidents also rose slightly from 25 in 2022 to 28 in 2023. This is the highest number of OTF-S incidents in the last 10 years.

The APHA say that having originated in West Oxfordshire,  East Oxfordshire is now the main driver of bTB spread in the county, especially during the last three years, with an increase of OTF-W incidents in 2023. This suggests that TB is actively spreading in East Oxfordshire, despite the initial decrease in the total number of incidents and following use of interferon gamma (IFN-γ)  blood testing and increased SICCT testing in 2018.

Unscientific inference

Despite APHA’s consistent inability to scientifically attribute bTB disease benefit to badger culling, they casually state that persistent incidents  have decreased due to “implementing control measures such as badger culling since 2019”.

In 2023, additional Defra approved ancillary tests (IFN-Y & IDEXX) for use in Oxfordshire to “remove infection in incidents where the level of reinfection from purchases and wildlife was believed to be low, but where the effect of residual infection was preventing incidents from becoming clear”. It is not clear what exactly leads APHA to believe infection in wildlife is low in this instance, when they consistently say that it is high elsewhere. Perhaps due to removal by shooting of around 2,500 badgers in Oxfordshire’s Cull Area 49 (West Oxfordshire) in an area overlapping with Gloucestershire?

Deer are next in the blame game

Reports of suspicion of TB in wild deer increased in 2023. This is likely due to the creation in 2022 of the Oxfordshire Cluster Project, which offered training to local deer stalkers to identify typical lesions of TB in game carcasses.

Not surprisingly with greater checks, wild deer carcasses with TB lesions were reported to APHA in 2023: two roe deer, one  fallow and one muntjac. All were sampled and sent for TB culture and bTB clade B6-62 was confirmed in all of them which is the common clade in Oxfordshire cattle. Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS)  was employed by APHA to link “incidents to specific cattle incidents in the same geographical area”, with a  claim of ”further evidence of the relationship between cattle and local wildlife in the transmission of TB”, without evidence of the relationship and direction of infection. Inconclusive epidemiology.

The Bird-flu distraction claim

The APHA also claim that an increase in recorded bTB incidence in cattle in 2023 followed an emergency interim action in December 2021, diverting APHA staff to addressing the 2021-2023 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks. Gamma testing was prioritized to the LRA and Edge Area counties on 12-month testing (not 6-monthly) during that time, further reducing the number of tests in Oxfordshire. APHA view this change in gamma policy as likely to have contributed to slowing the decrease in incidence in 2022 and for the increase  in 2023, amongst other factors. However, in addition, the reduction of EU finance after Brexit was a driver to reducing disease eradication effort.

APHA in a muddle?

APHA say that licensed intensive badger culling operations started in the west side of Oxfordshire in 2019, while the first large area in Oxfordshire was  Cull Area 49 commencing  2020. In 2021 a Cull Area 61 further north was commenced with an additional Cull Area 69 on the East side of the county starting 2022.

Guess-estimated Cull Area boundaries in Oxfordshire with year of start

APHA claim that badger culling has “probably started to have a positive impact in western areas of the county but not yet in the… east of the county where TB is spreading further east.” This is simply more unevidenced guesswork and is completely unacceptable, probably driven by one or two individuals who have over-invested in badger blame and who stands to lose a lot from being wrong about the whole sad process and because they have mislead hundreds of others.

Clusters

APHA claim that “clusters” of bTB breakdowns provide evidence of local spread, and say that where local cattle purchase has not occurred, cattle herd incidents are most likely caused by wildlife. Once again they are speculating – pointing by default to badgers where there is no obvious purchase of cattle to blame; undetected disease in the herd and very many other possibilities are once again ignored.

Clusters were first identified in Oxfordshire in 2017. WGS investigations and ‘phylogenetic trees’ have increased  knowledge of the transmission of M. bovis, but APHA say that they cannot always answer the direction of transmission and/or ancestry due to limited numbers of isolates. But in truth this is not possible in any of their investigations – they need to stop pretending and misleading readers of their reports. And the farmers should not put up with these misdescriptions – it is costing them dearly to be given inaccurate advice.

We know that badgers have been tested for bTB in cluster areas but how this work is being done is hidden in secrecy.  

Unevidenced ‘risk pathways’ again

APHA list the following main ‘risk pathway’s and key drivers for TB infection within Oxfordshire in 2023  in the following order:

  • exposure to infected local wildlife
  • movement of undetected infected cattle
  • residual infection from previous incidents.

Astonishingly, the APHA still put infected wildlife at the top of their list of risk factors for TB incidents in cattle in 2023. Could this be because they are still using the discredited Disease Report Form (DRF), which blames badgers by default, when there is no clear infection route from cattle? There was an impression in 2023 that the DRF was being phased out but APHA seem trapped in a neglectful poorly functioning system where blaming badgers fills the gap of attribution being uncertain due to inadequate investigation and testing.

These incidents are far more likely to be from undetected disease in cattle. Once again without evidence, APHA still pedal the same old rhetoric that they have still been telling vets and farmers:  “most common source of transmission from wildlife identified during on-farm investigations were potentially infected badgers, but the presence of other wildlife species such as wild deer is increasingly reported in some areas”. Adding as some kind of ‘get out of jail if wrong’ statement that there is “high uncertainty as to their [bagders]  role in transmitting TB to cattle”.  It’s an utter disaster area. They also admit that distinguishing source attribution between badgers and residual cattle infection in recurrent incidents is difficult, but claim it is likely “a combination” of both factors. Muddling cattle movements with unevidenced badger infection somehow suits their old  arguments but muddles vet and farmer understanding. Basically, the APHA are still pointing to badgers as an important source of infection, misleading the industry without any evidence. .

Tricking the vets and farmers – residual infection is the key

As now appreciated by the BBC 2 documentary on the work of the Save Me Trust and Dick Sibley in Devon and elsewhere – looking at the APHA reporting of 3 yearly recurrence data and recurrence in the lifetime herd history, you can see that  82% of incidents reported across Oxfordshire were in herds with a history of TB during the herd’s lifetime, including more than 3 years previously. Recurrence of bTB is due to undetected residual infection coupled with cattle movements. It is the result of insensitive tests. This is where the problem lies and with current approaches APHA have no chance of disease control – it is one huge failure.

Whilst APHA do accept residual cattle infection as an important problem and note the tendency of incidents in Oxfordshire to be more chronic and recurrent, they still cling on to badger blame.  Why they do so is extraordinary, but relates to a shrinking group of individuals so wedded to it being the case; as a group they dare not change position. The only thing that will make that happen is if farmers and vets stand up to how they are being grossly mislead by those who effectively control them.

Introduction of systematic supplementary Gamma testing since 2018 has increased the overall sensitivity of testing in herds and reduced the likelihood of infection being left in the herd at the end of a TB incident. Good progress was being made but (as above) this supplementary testing has been reduced in the last two years and targeted to a limited number of herds with recurrent and persistent incidents. Absolute madness – why are the livestock farmers not jumping up and down about  this slackening off?

Sadly, the picture is the same across other counties. In Cheshire, for example, 86% of incidents reported across the region were in herds with a history of TB in the herds lifetime, including in the three previous years. It’s really not rocket science.

A messy complicated picture

The number of herd incidents of TB per year in Oxfordshire remained high over the last 5 years, with a decreasing trend in 2021 and 2022, before reverting in 2023 to the same levels as seen in 2020. The epidemiological picture has become more complex in recent years with multiple clusters, some of which have only recently become apparent. APHA say that this “does not favour the long-term objective of reducing OTF-W incidence to less than 1% in Oxfordshire by 2038.” 

The future look bleak

British farming is staring down the barrel of an even greater bTB  disaster. APHA and their badger blame game story are in danger of making a new High Risk Area out of  the Edge Area and risk infecting the entire country.

APHA are at least emphasizing the importance of the early detection of infection through more frequent surveillance testing of cattle herds, alongside the use of mandatory gamma testing on all OTF-W incidents. And now alongside other Defra approved ancillary testing by  informed case management, recognising lack of sensitivity of current tests (SICCT) as a potential issue. But not with sufficient emphasis and determination to mend the current broken system. Disciplined pre and post movement testing are still approached in an ineffective way, despite their pivotal role in stopping transmission. This has been clearly known and ignored since 2018 when the issue was pointed out to the Godfray Review..

APHA’s continued blaming of badgers for a significant proportion of cattle bTB infections is now a real barrier to disease control that risks pulling the beef and dairy industries further into disaster.  The scientific evidence APHA skews to blame badgers is ridiculous and as the 2038 ambition dissolves, the stakes are being raised higher and higher. Who will be the first to realise and take urgent  action to prevent the worsening of  this national disaster? Those in charge might answer.

 

Murky dealings in England and NI, and why ineffective badger culling continues

If it had been known last Christmas that a Labour government would be in power by July of this year, an imminent end of the cull would have been anticipated. With a public inquiry set up into how the killing of 230,000 badgers could ever have been allowed to happen. The science supporting culling has continued to become increasingly uncertain and is now close to breaking point (here) with many learned institutions poised to be shaken over one of the more serious biological  revelations for  a generation.

Labour had pledged that it would  end the cull, even put  a statement in their manifesto that labelled badger culling ‘ineffective’ to send the message to voters. Surely it would end immediately, as ineffective = unlawful to continue. Voters must have had that in mind when they voted. 

Unfortunately, that is not the way things went. True, the plan that would otherwise have moved forward for ‘targeted‘ or ‘epidemiological’ culling was well and truly scrapped (here). But incredibly Defra and Natural England hung on by their fingertips to the increasingly frail scientific justification for the ‘model’ that is the Cumbria Area 32/Hotspot 21 ‘Low Risk Area’ 100% cull. They have added a new cull area next door to its failed exemplar (here). This is to continue until 2027 at least and, just possibly, more areas could be added, potentially  lasting until the end of this Parliament (2029). ‘Intensive’ and ‘Supplementary’ culling remain in place this year and next.

In Cumbria, the area north of the old cull area has been infected with bTB. Why? Because trading of infected stock continues from infected herds incorrectly declared TB-Free nearby, and cattle testing is only done every four years. Which is truly crazy so close to the original hotspot. Farms within 15 Km of hotspots sharing grazing or exchanging stock should quite obviously be on annual or more frequent testing. The breakdown investigation rules actually favour a cluster developing. APHA assumes the recorded breakdown is the index case, not a nearby farm, and allows 30 days for farms within 3.0 Km radius of the breakdown to sell off stock before radial testing begins. It’s a neglectful recipe for creating a TB cluster. It is one of the things Reed and  Zeichner needed to fix in Week 1, and civil servants should have told them so.

Why has  ineffectual TB management perpetuated – why is the new broom still in the cupboard? Apparently, around a year ago, with Labour uncertain of winning a big electoral majority, Steve Reed then the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, gave assurances to the NFU that ‘some’ badger culling would be allowed to continue.  He did this without a good knowledge of the issue, and apparently without the knowledge of Party researchers. It was a sleazy back door deal for political support in 2024.

Over the last four weeks or so in September, badger blood mixed with persistent rain, as around 10,000 badgers were needlessly shot, often inhumanely. More will die this month at an average rate of 300 a day. Another 10,000 or so badgers are to be killed next year, and an unspecified, smaller number will be killed in 2027 until 2029, because Steve Reed made a pre-election commitment to keep culling going – without understanding the real disease control needs – for political gain.

But we have seen this before. In Northern Ireland in 2021 the Ulster Farmers Union had a similar commitment to ‘wildlife intervention’ (i.e. badger culling) from the ‘top’ in DAERA that they were impatient to see brought forward (Case 2021 here). This was done by suggesting that there was a need (unevidenced scientifically) for badger culling to accompany better cattle testing. Dodgy deals behind people’s backs, for political gain, and irrespective of the cost to the  taxpayer. It has to stop.

 

Gloucs Pilot Badger Cull Area no. 1: Farms Still Swamped With Bovine TB

The figures speaks for themselves. Herd BTB breakdowns in the very first cull area in Gloucestershire have changed little since 2013, after nine years of persistent badger culling.

With a downward trend in ‘confirmed’ (OTFW) breakdowns prior to the start of culling, data is consistent with benefits from continued enhanced cattle controls hitting the limits of their effectiveness. But the poor sensitivity of the skin test has retained diseased cattle less responsive to the SICCT and gamma test, and kept the area as diseased as it was at the start. Elsewhere in  Gloucestershire it’s a similar story. A humiliating moment for Defra and APHA, who know that badger culling is ineffective and that the BTB testing procedures need a revolution, much as they do in Republic of Ireland. There is a dire need to drill down on the disease, especially in the larger dairy herds. Without this £Millions of taxpayer and farmers money will be wasted each week chasing impossible outcomes.

Area 1-Gloucestershire has seen a large percentage rise in number of cattle (up by 20% or 4,124), despite the number of herds decreasing by 13. It is well known that disease rises as herds get larger, so why are the public being asked to support a process that is making things worse? And who is going to step up to resolve the crisis?

Yet More Cumbria Badger Killings

Who is really in charge of Bovine TB control at Defra?

It’s very strange. The brand new Labour Government’s manifesto says that badger culls are  ‘ineffective’, yet they will ‘honour’ those existing ineffective cull contracts. Doesn’t sound right? Furthermore, they say that they will not issue new culling licences, but then issue a licence on 6th September to start a new ineffective cull, with one group boasting that they killed 22 adult and young badgers over the weekend.

It seems that great efforts are being made to avoid explaining what Labour mean by  ‘ineffective’ culling. The expansion of the culls from February 2026 to the end of 2029  looks and walks like a quacking duck manifesto u-turn, if the consultation that closed last week is any guide.

It looks like the brand new licence for what is called Low Risk Area culling have started in Cumbria across most of a zone called Hotspot 29, with around 1,000 mostly healthy  badgers to be shot dead over an area of around 350 sq km. Actually, according to local knowledge in Penrith, it started (unlawfully) around six weeks ago, when at least one participating farmer was told  to get on with it. The area is below Carlisle running south, bordered to the west by the river Eden, and to the east side of Penrith. Specifically, much of Hotspot 29 forms the cull zone, then the area surrounding the current 4 breakdowns will form the Minimum Intervention Area (MIA) where all badgers are targeted. The land to the north and south of MIA will form the outer area for some culling. The area north of Penrith to the West of the river Eden has had one breakdown. This area is sandwiched between the A6/M62 boundaries and could also get some culling.

The Appearance is that a culling licence has been arranged by the same cull company that ran the previous Cumbria cull, Area 32 south of Penrith, already reported in detail. It’s where culling started after cattle testing had reduced breakdowns close to zero, and bTB was found to be embedded in a handful of chronic farms – not badgers at all. In Hotspot 29, livestock farming is generally being run down, with several farms closing and the older generations taking Rural Payment Agency retirement deals. Badgers are a scapegoat for this miserable demise and the local gamekeepers are all over it, believing badgers are the problem because they have been told so.

Any badger cull licence issued will have been issued due to intense pressure from farming industry bodies who have been gearing up to cull north of Penrith since the end of winter. It was long promised. They made preparations in May, but then Rishi Sunak called the election, and Labour said they would end the culls and not issue new licences. So why do DEFRA / APHA  appear to have said ‘yes’ to this new badger cull, despite the failure of badger culling in Area 32? 1,115 badgers have been killed there since 2018 for no good reason at all (here). 

Hotspot 29. Herd breakdowns 2013-2024. Note in 2020 due to covid restrictions, cattle testing was suspended. This resulted in increased trading of diseased cattle and further infections in subsequent years. In 2022 many new enhanced tests began to address the 2021 increase in the area, with the APHA/CVO epidemiological mistake of blaming it on badgers. It is what the 2018 LRA policy calls a ‘precautionary’ measure, and is the travesty of a failed policy that Labour now perpetuates, despite promising not to.

Few breakdowns have occurred in this area during the past 10 years. Killing hundreds of healthy badgers because of the trading of  infected cattle and mixed grazing is unnecessary and disgraceful.

So what’s going on? Do Steve Reed and Dan Zeichner have a proper handle on their civil servants – are they running the shop or not? Christine Middlemiss met with Steve Reed recently, still insisting badgers are to blame, based on her dubious scientific understanding. Has she overstepped the mark and will the Ministers turn a blind eye? We need to know. This week in response to a Parliamentary Question, (here) we see the same old language creeping back in, with words prepared for Daniel Zeichner saying “the gap between the end of one form of badger disease control and the successful deployment of another, should be as narrow as possible to bank the maximum disease control benefits.”  But there has been no evidence of tangible benefits to bank from the ineffective badger culls, and badger vaccination is a total distraction and waste of time. Why is he letting the old rhetoric prevail, distracting from the task in hand to revolutionize the cattle testing system and saving taxpayers £Millions? Just doesn’t add up.

Hotspot area (HS29) was established in January 2023 in response to the increase in OTF-W breakdowns in the area over the previous years, a result of infected cattle trading and 4 yearly testing. It covers 510 square km. Enhanced TB surveillance measures have been implemented in cattle across the whole hotspot area, with collection of ‘found dead’ badger and wild deer carcasses. The problem appears to be a group of landowners pursuing an original ‘Potential Hotspot 29’ designation to be upgraded to full hotspot status, in order to apply for a cull licence.

Meetings were held locally by the NFU acting alongside the cull company who were encouraging all the farmers/landowners to sign up, together with supplying/distributing, peanuts and equipment to farmers for baiting. The intention seemed to be to cull 95% of badgers ‘before they became a problem’. Being told by someone: “just get on with shooting and don’t wait for the licence to be issued”. Rumours suggest that local farmers were wound up by this rhetoric until they were champing at the bit to get on with it. Groups have been seen out lamping at night, with an eye witness to two separate groups shooting across the valley from opposite directions at the same target. 

There are currently only six breakdowns in Hotspot 29. With four in a cluster to the east of Penrith. One of this cluster is Hole Farm, Ousby, in a general area where unlawful culling has been reported. It is doubtful if Natural England and the police will investigate due to lack of guidance and resources.

Meanwhile in and around the  failed Cull Area 32 breakdowns continue despite badger culling and vaccination. When will they twig they are wasting their time and other peoples money with huge human and animal welfare costs?

 Hotspot 29

In Spring 2024, the APHA introduced a staged strategy for BTB hotspots. To determine whether an index (initial) case should trigger a hotspot area, APHA vets will try to establish the likely origin of infection for the affected herd or cluster of herds. If the origin of the index case(s) is likely to be the introduction of TB-infected cattle into the herd, then APHA will not instigate a hotspot area and the standard procedures for a normal OTFW breakdown in the LRA are followed, including radial surveillance testing to monitor for any spread from those introductions. APHA has said for many years, most LRA breakdowns are due to cattle movements, confirmed by Whole Genome Sequencing.  But demonstration of shared strains between cattle and badgers once cattle have polluted the landscape is now sufficient to cull badgers, without evidence  of directionality. This dumbing down  is simply bad science with no justification and should be considered unlawful. (See here)

The Defra  2014 strategy predicted LRA TB freedom by 2025.  Just look at how badly things are going. Herd incidence has nearly doubled. Largely because APHA are only now increasing cattle testing measures (e.g. from four-yearly testing to annual and 6 monthly) hence more disclosure and with badger blame to cover their inadequacies. Government strategy has been so poor that they need something to be the cause other than their own failings and neglect.

Rise of BTB herd incidence in the Low Risk Area of England over the last 25 years due to inadequate cattle testing and movement controls. Costing farmers and taxpayers dearly.

Badger Crowd has one message to Steve Reed and Daniel Zeichner –

You need to get a grip on your Department right now.

 

Chief Vet’s targeted badger cull plans finally scrapped

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%

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

 

 

‘Badger culling forever’ legal case update

With all the changes in Government over the last month, it can be hard to keep track of the legal cases that are developing or underway to end badger culling. Badger Crowd has been supporting a case against the public consultation on bovine TB control by the departed Tory Government that began in March of this year, prior to the Labour landslide victory at the polls at the start of July.

The Consultation was founded on its ludicrous and unscientific headline claim of a 56% benefit from badger culling and aimed at handing sweeping powers to the Chief Veterinary Officer. This would enable her to declare Badger Cull Areas of equal or greater size to those designated for culls to-date, and to allow the numbers of badgers shot to be without limits over an extended time period each year, and to 2038 or beyond.  Effectively, this would be a free hand for badgers to  be shot across farmland, and  to be tempted with bait to leave protected areas to be killed much as since 2013. The aim would be, as in the failed Cumbia pilot Low Risk Area cull, to also shoot healthy animals moving into the culled areas once the shooting starts, with some token vaccination of a few badgers afterwards for a few years.

Badger Crowd has helped stand up against  these wanton plans, now poorly labelled ‘Targeted Culling’  and has helped crowd-fund to enable legal work to challenge multiple aspects of the Consultation that look deceptive, poorly evidenced  and unlawful. A case was lodged at the High Court and DEFRA were due to respond by 29th July.

However, last week Badger Crowd learns that The Government Legal Department representing  the new  Secretary of State, Steve Reed,  indicated that DEFRA would like a four-week extension of the deadline for filing, should it wish to, of  what is called an Acknowledgement of Service, where the defendant makes their case clear.  This would push their response towards the end of August. It was said that the new Labour Government may intend to take a different approach to that pursued by the previous Government and that there was need for more time to make proper decisions. Going ahead with a case now without clarity  on the new government’s position on the Consultation might be contrary to all parties’ interests and the overriding objective of tackling the disease.

This seems sensible, to avoid  significant waste of costs and of court time and resources, albeit that a clear mandate to end badger culling was set out in the Labour manifesto. Agreement to this request was made, in the hope of good decision making.

Equally we hope that ‘supplementary’ and ‘intensive’ culling is brought to an immediate end. With a new self-proclaimed anti-cull government in place, there are 48 cull areas remaining this year, 25  of which ending this year, with  23 ending next year. The contracts should have been ended by now. There is no real argument not to.

However, bringing an end to the tragic cycle of misinformation, financial waste, nature side effect impacts uncertainty  and animal welfare issues of so-called Targeted Culling, is the basis of this current legal case. There will be a further news updates at the end of this month or before if things move faster. Its time now to listen to the science and stop the badger culls.

 

The vigil of Betty Badger outside DEFRA offices in London

Betty Badger (AKA Mary Barton) has stood outside Defra offices in Marsham Street every Thursday for over 7 years now. She has done it in all weathers, sometimes unbearably hot, sometimes soaking wet, sometimes freezing cold.

She is doing it to protest at the ongoing badger cull that has now killed over 230,000 badgers. She is doing it to raise awareness of the issue, and to make sure that this dreadful policy does not become considered as acceptable.  Because it’s not. She is doing it to make sure that the Defra employees who go in and out of the building are reminded that their badger cull policy, that they oversee, is causing huge suffering and depletion of native wildlife. She does it because she is so distraught about it, that she can’t NOT do it.

Sometime she gets words of encouragement, sometimes she gets verbal abuse. Occasionally she gets physical abuse.  Sometimes passing Defra employees reveal their complete ignorance of the science of bovine TB and badger culling by their comments to Betty. Occasionally a civil servant will approach Betty say “ I can’t talk to you because I would get into trouble, but thank you Betty for doing this and please carry on”

She has secured meetings with each Secretary of State for the Environment during her vigil (except for Therese Coffey), who have for the most part listened politely, but insisted the badger cull is the ‘right thing’ and pressed on with it.

Last year, as the political tide turned, she had a meeting with the Shadow Minister for Defra, Daniel Zeichner. He made positive noises, suggesting Labour would aim to get rid of bovine TB without culling badgers (not shown to work), but using cattle measures (known to work). He advised her that with Labour in government, Betty could have her Thursdays back: she wouldn’t need to stand outside Defra any more.

But here we are……..Betty is still outside Defra after all. Natural England have released information under Freedom of Information saying that up to  28 thousand badgers will be targeted this year. And this is despite the statement in the Labour Manifesto that culling badgers is ‘ineffective’ and will end.

Betty has read the science and thinks badgers have been framed.

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

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.

Labour and Badger Culling?

In 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour party, their manifesto stated clearly that, if elected, badger culling would stop. Labour under the leadership of Keir Starmer had a less clear position on badger culling, until Reform UK split the Conservative vote, and in the recent election manifesto it was said that Labour would “work with farmers and scientists on measures to eradicate Bovine TB, protecting livelihoods, so that we can end the ineffective badger cull”.

How will Labour work with farmers and scientists?

Since the election, Steve Reed, the new Secretary of State  for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Daniel Zeichner, the new Minister of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, have been busy making their presence felt amongst the farming community. They seem to have been rubbing shoulders every other day with the NFU for the last two weeks, and yesterday (18th July) were at the National Farmers’ Union Summer Reception in Parliament in front of dozens of MPs, where Zeichner said:

And I know the culling debate is a really, really hard one. Very, very contentious. Huge passion on both sides of the argument. But let me tell you, the Secretary of State has been clear: the current round of licences will be honoured. I absolutely believe we’re only going to eradicate bovine TB by working closely and constructively together to use all the science and everything that we’ve got to beat it. We are going to beat it. I tell you, I’ve already said to the department, that is my top priority. So, you have my assurance.”

So who will be working closely and constructively together? Zeichner is fulfilling his commitment to meet with industry representatives. How about meeting with the scientists? And other stakeholders shut out by Government for a decade or more? He may be talking to the scientists who have spent the last 20 odd years presenting work from their own Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT) as the best evidence of the role of badgers in bovine TB, but they are definitely not talking to published scientists who have found that culling badgers has no role in the management of bovine TB in cattle (Langton et al 2022 and Torgerson et al 2024).

Are Labour taking ‘evidence’ from only one side of the debate and filtered through the lenses of civil servants? The civil servants seem to be doubling down to keep uncertain and flawed science that they have propped up for two decades. Will Labour keep in place the really dreadful  Bovine TB Partnership that is made up largely of those with the commercial interests of farming and cattle vets, to advise on badger culling. Mostly not scientists. With a new scientific paper out this week (here) that shows that there were no measurable effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle in the RBCT, will there be better thinking from Labour? Will they drop the unscientific inference (from Birch et al.) regarding the 56% reduction in breakdowns (2013-2020) being due to badger culling rather than from cattle testing? (See what Professor David MacDonald says about this here). If they will not stop culling now, with yet more science suggesting badger culling is ineffective, then when will they, and can the law let them?

Ineffective badger cull?

It was heartening to see in Labour’s manifesto that they agree that the badger cull is ineffective. It would have been good to see a little more detail on why this is their view. We would like to hear more on this. But surely, if culling is ineffective, it is illegal under Section 10 of the Protection of Badger Act 1992? Culling badgers would only be permitted under licence if it could prevent the spread of disease  – which it cannot if it is ineffective? So is Labour talking in riddles, or poised to backtrack and go back on its first manifesto pledge? We are about to find out.

We can end the ineffective badger cull?

‘We can end’ the ineffective badger culls’ they say, but when? Millions of people voted Labour because they hoped and believed that Labour would end the culls on coming into power. Why wouldn’t they, they are ineffective? Or do they believe they are effective, as Defra Vet Christine Middlemiss has been telling them, with the fake ‘56%’ nonsense that is now under legal challenge. Newly published science shows that there can be no measurable benefit from continuing culling. They cannot be continuing them because of contractual obligation to culling companies, because the Derbyshire cull that was cancelled in 2019 was legally challenged by the NFU, but the judge found that the government had a legal entitlement to make a political decision about culling. So they could make a political decision, and a scientific one, to stop all culling straight away if they wanted to. So why don’t they? This is now the big question that they need to answer next week before they pack up from Parliament for the summer.