Tag Archives: badger cull

Is Test Vaccinate Remove (TVR) the new corrupted thinking?

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Labour took over Government in July 2024, with a manifesto that announced an end to “ineffective” badger culling. But since then there has been little change in the perpetual failings of Government response to the scientific and policy issues.

Culling of largely healthy badger adults and cubs has continued in the High Risk Area of England and beyond; figures for the numbers killed under Labour rule in 2024 will be released in May and are likely to be around 15,000. Shamefully, a new area in Cumbria,in the Low Risk Area was licensed for 100% targeted culling, again with very few active  bTB breakdowns, all of which were caused by infected cattle movements.  A few hundred badgers will have been needlessly shot there so that Defra, APHA and Natural England can show the NFU that they are keeping the cull plates spinning.

The old Government plans for mass “targeted culling” across the UK which were at the consultation stage during the General Election were rightly scrapped, but they have been replaced by a stated aim to bring forward badger vaccination. Defra and APHA just won’t accept that badgers are not a significant part of the bovine TB problem in England, and move on to cattle based measures that would rapidly bring the disease under control. This is despite published peer-reviewed science that clearly shows how badger culling is based on uncertain science and that it cannot be shown to have reduced bTB in cattle.

Now a trickle of papers are being published that seem to reveal the policy direction DEFRA is pushing for adoption for England, and hence Wales and Northern Ireland. APHA staff seem to be scrupulously sticking to civil service tribal behaviours, ignoring published science that they do not like, continuing to try to frame “association” as “cause and effect”, and championing confirmation bias. With “Tuberculosis in found dead badgers at the edge of the expanding bovine tuberculosis epidemic”, the text “highlights the co-incidence of infection in badgers and cattle in parts of the southern edge area consistent with localised clustering of infection in both species.”  But this is not surprising, and provides no insight into the direction of infection. Yet the farming press immediately put a spin on the work, saying it “provides new insight into the potential role of badgers in the transmission of TB, particularly in areas where the disease has not yet fully taken hold in cattle populations”.  They continue “Badgers have long been implicated in the spread of TB to cattle, and this study suggests that they continue to play a role in areas near the edge of the disease’s established range.” Written to keep the badger blame flame alive.  

Next we get “Can badger vaccination contribute to bovine TB control? A narrative review of the evidence”. Here we get the following bold statement in the abstract: “Modelling studies evaluating different strategies for controlling TB in badgers predict that badger vaccination will reduce TB prevalence in badger populations and lead to corresponding reductions in cattle herd disease incidence.” There may be some evidence that badger vaccination will reduce bTB prevalence in badgers, but there is no certainty that this will lead to corresponding reductions in cattle herd disease incidence. Yet Government scientists continue to try to groom the science world and the public into believing their partial interpretations of the science, and then fit them to their chosen policies. Policy driven evidence once again.

And a recently posted pre-print “Bovine tuberculosis model validation against a field study of  badger vaccination with selective culling” introduces a sinister prospect. If you thought all forms of targeted culling were off the table, think again. Test, and Vaccinate or Remove (TVR) is now being discussed once more. (The TVR approach involves capturing live badgers, testing them for TB with an unreliable test, vaccinating those that test negative to the disease and killing those that test positive). Using data from the Irish ‘Four areas’ culling trials of the 1990’s and data from the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT), this paper is a claim for the efficacy of modelling in predicting culling outcomes. But the problems of such modelling remain the same; the quality of the data, the size of the samples, the appropriateness of the models used. And the problems of separating the effects of different variables also remain, as we have seen with the clumsy Government interpretation of APHA’s ‘Birch’ paper in 2024, brought out (unsuccessfully) to try to railroad ‘targeted’ culling through. Garbage in, garbage out.

None of the above publications or pre-prints have cited publications that demonstrate that the efficacy of badger culling is not evidenced.  Meanwhile, the latest Government initiated review of ‘new’ science since 2018 continues in private, and is due to report by the end of June when it will be given to the hapless BTB Partnership. Commissioned by the government last year, most of the review panel scientist appointees have been closely associated or involved in Government science for many years, and have provided or supported the rationale on which intensive badger culling has been pursued since 2013. They rubber stamped it again at the last review. Can we expect an objective conclusion this time?

Government produced science on badgers and bovine TB within the UK is now completely lacking impartiality; it is unbalanced and mired in confirmation bias. Just read the first line of this Abstract (DAERA funded) in “Landscape as a Shared Space for Badgers and Cattle: Insights Into Indirect Contact and Bovine Tuberculosis Transmission Risk”; this paper is inference without evidence.  Papers on badger vaccination and trap-side testing are becoming speculative narratives seeking to justify the past papers that the authors have been writing, sometimes for decades, believing that the ‘ground zero’ analyses and hypotheses were sound. With nowhere to go, they just keep digging. And dangerously claiming that TVR could help reduce bTB in cattle, even if half of the badgers killed are healthy false positives. It is more of the same old guesswork in play.

The direction of travel of this recent trickle of papers by government scientists suggests that the new Godfray review will switch from recommending badger vaccination experiments to TVR experiments, while cranking up ‘hotspot’ culling (which is targeted culling with a different name) to keep the ‘old science’ going. Presumably, as in 2013, there will be a ghastly pilot of the new policy that would provide DEFRA with what they need to keep the NFU and others happy with continued culling. Meanwhile, the public will continue to foot the bill for dirty cattle trading. And yet again Natural England get a stay of execution, safe from the recently announced review of ‘quangos for the chop’ by retaining their badger cull licensing function.

If Government, and Ministers during their short tenures, ever gets serious about making England TB free, they need to look to cattle-based solutions. The long held historic fixation with badgers is not borne out by credible science. They need to address cattle measures head on, rather than continuing to pretend they couldn’t rapidly stop bTB in its tracks if they wanted to, and save all those involved from massive cost, needless destruction and prolonged misery. Why won’t they do that?

If you support challenging the flawed science behind the badger cull and a parliamentary debate on the issue, please sign the petition linked below calling to “End the Badger cull and adopt other approaches to bovine TB control”: 

‘Science and Politics’ by Ian Boyd

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Hiding in plain sight with the Oxford brigade

Prof. Sir Ian Boyd has a book out: ‘Science and Politics’ (politybooks.com, around £20). In it, he devotes several pages to describing the events that led up to the start of English badger culls. He talks of attempts to reign in early  plans to get badger culling implemented, when a simple mess-up down to flawed population estimates led to the cull being postponed for a year. He then provides an ‘after the event’ critique of badger culling. Could this be a bit of re-writing of history with the benefit of hindsight, which has shown the inability of its proponents to demonstrate any benefit from the culls? There is no mention of the repeated failures to get a sufficiently good grasp of the veterinary science at the time, or the failure to call-out weak and questionable Government science at the heart of policy.

On February 15th Boyd was the guest of Sir Charles Godfray in Oxford for a book promotion, where bovine TB and badgers was the most mentioned topic, but the wider issue was politics distorting the scientific process in general. His main thrust appeared to be to point the finger at the politicians (‘charlatans’ he calls them in the book) and also at the Royal Society for not effectively educating the politicians. Boyd has clearly been frustrated by his seven-year experience as Defra chief scientist advisor (CSA), working for what he said might have been a ‘bad batch’ of Defra Ministers. But could he perhaps just be trying to hide his own wrong moves in plain sight?

Boyd’s cull?

If you had to pick one person whose name is synonymous with making the English badger culls happen on the ground during the last decade, it is arguably Ian Boyd, who was CSA for DEFRA from 2012-2019. Although the culls were not his concept, the job description required him to ensure that the policy was implemented, and that’s exactly what he did. He was put in post when the plans for two small pilot culls were underway, and he drove them through under Caroline Spelman and then Owen Paterson at DEFRA. Notably, at a National Farmers Union presentation in 2014, he gave a detailed PowerPoint presentation, where he said that there was no question – badgers had to be killed in order to deal effectively with bovine disease in their cattle. The effect of this was to cement the loathing of badgers for a generation in the livestock community, green-light vets to promote the badger blame game and make continued culling  easier and illegal culling more likely.

By 2015 an Independent Expert Panel on  badger culling was deftly bypassed. Emails released to the High Court would later show how Civil Servants were coached on how to get around legal issues to ensure the full badger cull roll-out from 2016.

The book talk entitled ‘Sir Ian Boyd in conversation with Sir Charles Godfray and Dame Helen Ghosh’ was held at the Oxford Martin building in central Oxford on February 15th. It put Ian Boyd amongst the scientists from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) study that provided the original (2011) policy justification for badger culling. His book, basically an insiders guide to how politicians and scientific advisors rub along together, was live-screened and put online too, (here). The audience, described by Godfray as ‘prestigious’, included a range of government and ex-government employees who had seen Boyd in office. Sir John Krebs (the main architect of the RBCT) was there alongside Christl Donnelly who did the controversial statistics of the RBCT, and the Emeritus Professor statistician Sir Bernard Silverman who has replaced Donnelly on the recently re-convened bovine TB review panel to be run by – your  guessed it – Charles Godfray. Gideon Henderson who took over the role of CSA at DEFRA after Boyd, was also there. Helen Ghosh who was Director-General of the National Trust during the Badger Culls, made up the third member of the discussion panel, and the meeting took questions from a select few, with one or two further questions from the floor at the end.

Sir Charles Godfray, Sir Ian Boyd, Dame Helen Ghosh


The ‘scientifical political predicament’

Boyd’s short  introduction made it plain that his book  was aimed at getting a debate going, and that he was on a ‘good-guy’ mission. When he accepted the Chief Scientific Advisor role at DEFRA, he said that there had been no help to give him insight into what it would be like, and he had to learn very quickly. He felt he was on a learning curve the whole time, and after he had left he felt he had a duty to share his experiences. The first part of his book, his ‘scientifical political predicament’ (the tensions between scientists and politicians) led him to think that by getting involved with politics, scientists actually become ‘corrupted’. It was, he said, a problem that scientists have to try to solve to make the ‘politics factory’ (the people and space where Government happens) more effective. This included the institutions and structures around Government: NGO’s, industry, lobby groups, etc.

Part two of his book takes this further, and is called ‘Science Corrupted’. It was, he said, “really about trying to take the consequences of the processes that science is involved in, with respect to trying to get its voice heard, and understand what effect that has on science. So it’s the scientifical political predicament being played out”. As chair of the UK Research Integrity Office for the last six years, Boyd felt that a lot of the problems that sit with ‘science integrity’ occur at the politics factory interface, and are partly a result of, and partly driven by that process. Within this interface, Boyd described constructs, such as ‘evidence’, ‘what works’, ‘experts’ and ‘normative research’,  and with lots of ‘confirmation bias’ sitting in the research. But he did not distinguish between research that was Government funded and done in-house, and that undertaken by independent bodies. He felt ‘confirmation bias’ occurs mostly in areas of post-normal science where there’s high uncertainty, high demand for results and a lot of controversy. He could have been talking about badger culling, (here). In the mid 1990’s, an impatient if not aggressive MAFF, tore up the veterinary research they did not like and demanded decisive action to cull badgers on behalf of cattle farmers.

‘Marking own homework’

The third part of his book, Boyd said, was called ‘taming the beast’, and about how it might be possible to fix the problem. This would be external to the existing ‘executive, legislative and Judiciary structures’ within Government that look in on how science is used, but were prone to ‘marking their own homework’ to some extent. Hence the continuous degradation of quality within the science being used would be avoided. He felt this would need a lot of hard work and determination, particularly from the scientific community and the leaders within the scientific community.

Helen Ghosh said she had been brought up in the old Department of the Environment, and her Secretaries of State in succession were Michael Heseltine, Tom King, Chris Patton and John Gummer, who had dealt with a lot of very tricky scientific issues. She didn’t recognize, or only recognized partially, Boyd’s characterisation. Boyd then praised Michael Gove (2017-2019) and said he (Boyd) had probably worked through a ‘bad batch’ of SoS’s. There had been good times, but not many, he said (note, before Gove they were Caroline Spelman, Owen Paterson, Liz Truss, and Andrea Leadsom). Ghosh mentioned badgers as being a problem that needed looking at on a ‘systemic basis’ (farming) rather than on a ‘topical basis’ (disease control). The ‘elephant in the room’ however was that if the disease control science been understood and implemented properly, the bovine TB epidemic could have been controlled much sooner. Boyd had failed to get his head around the veterinary science. Badgers and bovine TB were mentioned (although not in any detail) now and again, usually with a nervous smile from those present, many of whom still have considerable ‘skin in the game’.

Emergency ‘car crash’ response

Boyd’s view was that the leadership within the scientific community has to be much more attuned to ‘providing’. Making sure that science gets into the system at a much earlier stage than it tends to do at the moment. With it currently being a sort of emergency ‘car crash’ response a lot of the time. “And it really can’t be. It needs to be involved in designing the car and the road system and all the other things that go on.“  he added. Maybe it was a matter of having science advisors within political parties when coming up with their manifestos, he suggested.

Hindsight

Boyd was asked what he would have wanted to know when he walked into DEFRA’s offices in 2012 and what had he learned subsequently?  Tellingly, he said that he would have preferred to have had a better view on how to deal with the badger culling situation. As mentioned above, Boyd’s book has what some might call selective reporting on this issue. As mentioned, he now frames himself as reticent towards badger culling. He said badger culling was something of a ‘wonderful example’ of the scientifical political predicament “and it’s still ongoing, you know it’s one of these things that just rolls on and on and on. And Gideon’s there, Gideon [Henderson] will be dealing with it right now, you know and John [Krebs] is here, and John dealt with it a lot.” It will go on and on and on. I don’t think there’s one solution to it. But I wish I’d known a lot more about the technical details when I walked in.” So do the badgers. And the cows and farmers.  And the second ‘elephant in the room’ was Boyd (and previously in 2007 David King the Gvt. CSA), failing to check the statistics of badger culling in sufficient depth – King didn’t quite dig deep enough. If either of them had, they would have discovered how weak the association between badgers and bovine TB in cattle truly was. Krebs and Donnelly, sitting in the audience were not going to comment, having created the science that has been used and providing the endorsements politicians needed to set Boyd up to launch mass culls.

Hocus Pocus

Boyd went on to say that he worried about the extent to which there is compromise on the quality of scientific knowledge and argument. He referred to ‘indigenous knowledge’ in the biodiversity and environmental space, and how ‘indigenous peoples’ do know a lot about their environment and actually can bring an immense amount of information to bear on it. This was a bit obscure, but perhaps an oblique attempt at characterising those outside Government/University circles. Some information was ‘Hocus Pocus’ he said, “and we need to be able to identify the difference. We need to identify the good stuff from the bad stuff, or the reliable stuff from the unreliable stuff.” But that was his job wasn’t it?

Boyd bemoaned an ‘awful lot’ of evidence that sits around masquerading as high quality when it is actually quite low quality, but did not give examples. Boyd felt it was “really hard when in a position of having to advise a minister to use this evidence or that evidence, to know what is good and what is bad. “ Hmmm…… 

He continued “In the end you often have to make a judgment about, well, where does it come from, is it reliable source, those sorts of things, or you know, looking at looking at scientific paper and understanding, particularly the methods, are the other methods reliable or not. But even that actually sometimes masquerades as high quality when it’s actually quite low quality” Was that recognition that there has been an excessive reliance of work from sources with the right ‘pedigree’, without sufficient scrutiny?

This seemed to be as close to a confessional over badger culling as you could get. Boyd had little experience with veterinary science or cattle management in 2012 and as a ‘newbie’ had accepted, without enough scrutiny, the ‘Oxford’ science and submitted to the NFU brow-beating approach. Did he only realise, or accept his lack of understanding once he had left his post? Or has he held his confessional back for a reason or two.

So what was he doing by writing his book? Putting it out to all that he was a victim of a broken system?  Hints of contrition?  Was this just an elaborate ‘I got it wrong’ moment – a cathartic admission to purge his conscience and temper his legacy in an era that will be named as a defining one in UK environmental demise? The badger culls (and bovine TB muddle) need not ’roll on and on and on’. But Henderson, the new CSA, picked up the torch from Boyd and still no-one in Oxford wants to be the first to admit, or even mention the overwhelming uncertainty around their badger cull science. And, oh yes, Henderson is an Oxford man too…

Standards being stretched

Boyd’s thesis was that there is need for an official authority to be able to say ’this person is reliable’ and ‘this person isn’t reliable’. As President of the Royal Society of Biology, he said there was an authentication process (Chartered Biologist) that he personally does not use, but his view was that it should be used a lot more. There was scepticism from the audience. Gideon Henderson, who had suffered his own banana skin moment over badger culling data (here) wanted to know how corrupted he personally, and others had become? Presumably he had read Boyd’s previous writings on departmental tribalism (here). He wanted more detail, and to understand the nature of the corruption? Awkward.

Fiona Fox from the Science Media Centre made a remark that seemed more like a jibe, and with a distinct sarcastic edge than a question, possibly not understanding the way SMC gets used by civil servants; “…should academic scientists be expected to understand the policy process and understand what hell you are all clearly going through?” Unabashed, Boyd said that he felt ‘his standards’ were being stretched to some extent, and it had taken quite a lot of will, and self-discipline, to make sure that the basic scientific standards that he had been taught and had practiced for a very long time, were sustained and maintained. On corruption he said that people who get involved who are ‘not so wise’, could fall into a trap, which is basically to produce what he called ‘normative science’. Otherwise sometimes referred to as ‘policy-based science’. This is science that is helping to drive policy in a particular direction, and that he confirmed was what he meant by corruption. You could look at plenty of DEFRA agency constructs that fit this bill, but complying with civil service protocol,  Boyd was not naming names of anyone still in post. Did Henderson really not realise he just might fall into the category of ‘unwise person’? The polite tensions in the room were palpable and it was not clear who was having dinner with whom afterwards. The wrinkled noses in the audience were those of the civil servants who know about the problems and observe a protocol not to boat-rock once they have left office . At least Boyd deserves credit for speaking out, albeit a bit too late.

Boyd continued “I don’t really mean individuals are making an overt decision to undermine science. I think that there is an invidious underlying process that draws them in, in order to be able to produce the results that somebody else wants rather than the results that actually really are needed. So that’s what I mean by it. So it’s not a personalized criticism.” He unconvincingly wriggled around the tribal fear culture. His ‘tribalism’ thesis was the way in which, as a whistle blower, he was balancing being seen to seek honest reform (within the den of thieves in Parliament) with risking the extensive ‘pissing off’ of those outside Westminster, who might still lean over and damage any future ambitions.

Prof Bernard Silverman (statistician and renounced curate now standing in for recused Christl Donnelly in the Godfray bovine TB review panel) was the Home Office’s Chief Scientific Advisor, overlapping with Boyd’s tenure (here). He asked about the role of the Royal Society, of which he is a Fellow. Boyd went into overdrive: “ The problem is the Royal Society actually. And I’m saying that in a public domain. Where you have the premier organization which has a capacity to really knock on the highest political door in the country. And it does need to do more of a coordinating activity. I have no doubt about that at all. But it doesn’t, and I’ll leave it at that. And I see you nodding.” Boyd thought that science would do well to look at some of the other professions and how they manage quality control within those professions; the scientific community could come up with a new system. But it needed to be valued by the policy profession.

Also present were Claire Moriarty, past permanent secretary in DEFRA during Boyd’s period of office, Claire Craig who was Director of the Government Office for Science, Jim Naismith, Head of The Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) division at Oxford University and John Beddington (London Zoo).

So what can be taken home from all of this?  Basically, there is continuing pressure to produce results to fit a political agenda, mistakes are commonplace, they continue to be made, and the way to prevent the same thing from happening in the future is far from clear. Learned societies need to step-up, but acceptance of the problem is not universal. One thing is certain however; badgers, cows and the livestock industry lost out from the tangle of ‘Science and Politics’ before, during and after Boyd’s time in office, with 2014 targets now missed. Until those responsible take a good look at themselves and the mountain of hindsight now available, disgraceful waste will continue.

Important New Parliamentary Petition

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

 

 

‘Badger culling forever’ legal case update

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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

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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.