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Badger interventions in Low Risk Area of England show no benefits

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Follow up study confirms no sign of badger culls having an effect on cattle TB after 8 years in the LRA, as with findings from the HRA and Edge areas.

In 2023, seven independent experts compiled a review for MP’s of all parties on the first five years of badger culling and vaccination in England’s Low Risk Area, (see here).

Defra were sent the report but did not comment. They maintained their highly irregular and anti-democratic refusal to engage with anyone who does not concur with their views on bovine TB science.

The Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) ‘Low Risk Area’ (LRA) of England was established in 2013, as cattle trading spread the disease further into central and northern England. The LRA constitutes just over half the geographic area of England, largely land to the east and north of the country, including Cumbria.

The 2023 report had outlined how and why the LRA bTB control area of England was missing its targets. It is now clear that there has been a failure to reduce the disease effectively by 2025, in accordance with the stated aims and objectives of Defra’s original disease control policy and plans.

Three years on from that first report, data from 2024-2026 has been added to give an even clearer picture (see here), of how little contribution badger culling has made. The headline points are:

  • The four counties involved are: Cumbria, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire.
  • APHA handing of cattle movement restrictions following confirmation of a breakdown in the LRA is inadequate and may assist spread of disease
  • Badger culling is often used once cattle breakdowns have already diminished as a result of  increased testing frequency.
  • Defra have developed a culture of implementing  badger culling/vaccination when there is an unproven suspicion of disease risk. This does not result in any measurable disease effect, but they say it is necessary and can go on for ever.
  • Badger culling has been a completely unevidenced and epidemiologically senseless intervention used to appease farmer (NFU) demands.
  • Bovine TB continues to persist in areas where  badger control has taken place. This is due to inadequate cattle measures.

The Government’s 25-year bTB control strategy, published in 2014, aimed to obtain Officially TB-Free status for England by 2038. Reaching this target is looking increasingly unlikely using  current approaches, even with large expenditure from public subsidy. The 2025 LRA TB-Free targets have been missed due to Defra cattle disease control failures.

While current bTB measures do act to identify breakdowns as infected cattle are traded into the low-risk area on a monthly basis, there are signs that measures to deal with hotspots have been too limited to be effective. Tracing of strains in areas with low levels of infection is restricted. This is because sampling sites for strain type determination are largely determined by identification of lesions at post mortem.

Evidence for efficacy of badger interventions (badger culling and vaccination) in the LRA remains absent, much as it is for badger culling in the High Risk and Edge Areas. While cattle measures have clearly helped reduce breakdown incidence, one measure of infection, there is no evidence of the sharp decline that is typical of effective disease control measures working.

Events are consistent with the now widely accepted peer reviewed evidence that the main badger culling trial in the British Isles (RBCT 1998-2005) was poorly designed and did not carry out statistical analysis of data in a biologically credible way (see here). Evidence leading to a hypothesis for the bTB perturbation effect of badgers spreading bovine TB is now accepted as unevidenced. At present, it is uncertain whether badger plays a significant role in bovine TB spread in cattle, any more than any other wild mammals infected due to the persistent cattle bTB epidemic. This is an epidemic that has  infected the countryside via extensive spreading of bTB infected cattle excreta.

Government bTB wildlife interventions are implemented for an ‘anticipated benefit’ rather than an evidence-based, visible or recordable benefit. Actions are decoupled from clear and direct scientific evidence, and this is an unsustainable position that is not supported by veterinary ethics or wildlife considerations.

As such, the LRA badger interventions are an exemplar of why Defra’s push towards industry-led targeted culling (or cluster culling or epi-culling – very similar to LRA culling), at the behest of the Chief Veterinary Officer, is such a dangerous step in normalizing unproven and hugely wasteful veterinary intervention.

The authors view is that enhanced sensitivity of cattle testing is needed to control and eradicate local spread of TB in cattle in all risk areas of the UK and beyond. Without this, the epidemic will simply perpetuate, as it has done for decades in the Republic of Ireland where badger culling has been continuously practiced, with no evidence of any endpoint to the decades-long epidemic.  

You can read the new report here.

Badger cull threat grows in Northern Ireland

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Stormont has backed wildlife intervention

In April, Farmers Weekly reported (here), that Stormont (the Northern Ireland Assembly or government) has backed urgent action to address the lack of progress in tackling bovine TB in beef and dairy cattle herds.  Farming minister Andrew Muir told Members of the Legislative Assembly:

“Bovine TB is not simply an animal health issue but one of the most persistent, complex and emotionally draining challenges facing our agri-food sector.”


Unlawful consultation process thwarted culling attempts in 2023

Previous attempt to introduce badger culling in NI five years ago, was successfully defeated in the High Court following a legal challenge by the Northern Ireland Badger Group & Wild Justice in 2023 (see here). Lawyers representing the NGO’s had said:“The Northern Ireland executive failed to provide consultees with the information that they needed to have any hope of providing informed responses to their suggestion of a badger cull. They have also failed to show that there aren’t other reasonably practicable alternatives to culling, which is what is needed in order for the executive to allow, and even encourage, the killing of this protected species.”

At the heart of discussions coordinated by DAERA is a demand for a ‘comprehensive’ eradication strategy, including a wildlife intervention component. This is similar to the ‘all tools in the toolbox’ ideas of Defra back in 2012. Muir has said a ‘science-led’ approach would guide decisions but following the court ruling that quashed previous cull plans, warned any wildlife intervention can proceed only after a fresh, legally compliant consultation.


Ulster Famers’ Union demands wildlife intervention

Ulster Farmers’ Union deputy president Glenn Cuddy has been applying pressure on DAERA, saying :

“The assembly has now spoken with one voice on the seriousness of this issue. Action to eradicate bovine TB, including wildlife intervention, must now be delivered without further delay”.

Addressing the British Veterinary Association/Northern Ireland Veterinary Association reception at the Balmoral Show on 13th May 2026 (here), Muir recognised the “unacceptable costs” that the spread of bovine TB had imposed on farmers’ wellbeing, income and also upon the public purse. In addition to planned changes to cattle measures, he said that:

“Significant progress has been made in preparing a consultation on potential wildlife intervention options, which will issue shortly, following completion of the required environmental assessments and engagement with the Partnership Group.”


The commitment to consult on badger culling

Back in October 2025, during ‘Answers to Questions’ in the Northern Ireland Assembly (here), Andrew Muir made an obscure reference to cherry picking;

“We will follow a process; we will do this right. We will consult on the wildlife interventions, and we will take decisions on the way forward. We have to learn lessons from how we did it previously, and we have to respect the science and evidence, not, as some people have done, cherry-pick.”


The new proposal:

TB Partnership Steering Group’s Bovine TB in Northern Ireland: Blueprint for Eradication

DAERA’s industry-dominated committee the TBSPG has helped develop a new ‘regionalised’ approach (here) that has selected a region within NI with a mid-high risk level for bTB to apply comprehensive wildlife, cattle and people measures in combination. The plan is to determine the optimal measures for bTB control and future eradication, but it is not clear how outcomes will be scientifically measured.

Along with new cattle measures, a badger and sett survey (17 areas) has been done over winter 2025/spring 2026. DAERA propose to undertake two years of a Test, Vaccinate or Remove badgers (TVR) programme within the regionalisation area. There is a strong suggestion that TVR could move to targeted or intensive culling should TVR results prove unsatisfactory, although how this can be measured has not been disclosed.

Because of the way this project has cut across measured discussions in 2024/5 towards a new approach, the Northern Ireland Badger Group has withdrawn from the TB Partnership Steering Group. This is in protest at the sudden introduction of an unevidenced wildlife intervention proposal, driven by funding and advocacy from the Republic of Ireland using EU funding.


Previous studies point to cattle as driver of bTB

An earlier TVR research project (see here) carried out a decade ago found that culling badgers had no measurable effect on cattle TB breakdown incidence in the project area. The Abstract from the published study reported that the main explanatory variables (what was causing new disease outbreaks) for the breakdowns were bTB herd history and number of bTB infected cattle. It concluded:

“This finding is consistent with other study results conducted as part of the TVR project that suggested that the main transmission route for bTB in the area was cattle-to-cattle spread.”

A more recent Whole Genome Sequencing analysis (see here), similarly concluded that “….badger-to-badger transmission is not playing a major role in transmission dynamics. Our data were consistent with badgers playing a smaller role in transmission of M. bovis infection in this study site, compared to cattle. And that cattle to cattle infection was driving bTB disease dynamics.”


Same as in England then?

These findings concur with independent analyses that show that badger culling in England had no effect on cattle TB (see here). And recent reanalyses of the RBCT (see here, here and here) show that basic statistical oversight was responsible for a theorised disease benefit to cattle from culling badgers in the first place. Northern Ireland should really learn from England’s experience. Forget badger interventions and poor advice from DEFRA officials, and get on with dealing with the disease in cattle properly. And most of all, stop relying on antiquated cattle tests and testing rules within a straightjacket of government veterinary dogma.

Bad Badger News from Wales

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Welsh Government’s new plans to kill largely healthy badgers, using discredited scientific arguments sourced from England

With a newly elected Plaid Cymru-led government, badger culling is back on the agenda. And behind the scenes, plotting has been uncovered. Disturbingly, this is under Labour’s watch – what were they thinking? So what is the history of badger culling in Wales, whose TB control in cattle has matched that in England, without harming badgers at all?

Historically

Between 2017-2023, the Welsh Government (WG) ran an experimental Test Vaccinate Remove (TVR) project. This ran into huge problems due to a conflict between the ‘Sophia’ vaccine and the DPP test (to test cage-trapped badgers for bTB). The result was the inadvertent (or otherwise) killing of mostly vaccinated badgers. The total cost of the abandoned project was an eye watering £1,695,465. A total of 99 badgers were euthanised leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill of £17,125 per badger.  It was an expensive fiasco resting on poor advice and technology.

Who’s in charge now?

The Welsh Government Bovine TB Eradication Programme Board (TBEPB), dominated by industry interest, had its inaugural meeting in December 2024. As in England (the equivalent and notoriously bad BTB Partnership), this board is drawn heavily from the farming and veterinary industry. As of March 2026, it comprised:

  • A representative of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG, an independent expert panel that provides scientific and practical advice to the Welsh Government on its bovine Tuberculosis (TB) eradication programme)
  • 4 farmers, one of whom is Chair of NFU Cymru bTB focus group
  • 3 vets
  • 1 NFU representative
  • 2 anonymous APHA attendees (Defra are trying to influence Wales policy)
  • 2 anonymous Welsh Government officials and CVO (Richard Irvine, formerly deputy CVO Defra)
  • A former Rural Affairs Minister with previous experience of overseeing a proposed cull in the IAA that was prevented by a High Court Judicial Review. 

There is currently no representative from any wildlife or scientific organisations. (See here)

What did the board say at their latest meeting?

The board has engaged in a detailed discussion about its guidance on wildlife, covering the following points:

  • A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis should be conducted, with particular attention given to budgetary considerations
  • Decisions should wait for data to ensure any intervention is evidence-based
  • A wildlife representation should be included on the board
  • There was a necessity to identify pilot areas for intervention as soon as possible in order to initiate project activities
  • The board reviewed area-specific intervention strategies, including the use of England’s cluster template and potential mapping of clusters using epidemiological and local knowledge
  • Support was expressed for increased cattle testing in hotspot regions and for differentiating between minor and serious infections
  • Methods for tracking epidemiological changes were considered, with an emphasis on robust data and evidence-based recommendations
  • APHA was requested to begin mapping interventions implemented in England for possible adaptation in Wales, covering both wildlife and cattle concerns
  • Discussions included cross-border data sharing, improved communication among vets, delivery partners, and farmers, and the proposal of appointing a “TB Tsar”
  • The board debated pursuing either a single holistic policy or multiple updates throughout the year
  • The Chair was to share the previous RAG spreadsheet outlining initial priorities

This meeting of the TBEPB on March 11th, shows chillingly how almost nothing has been learnt from the past. Defra’s ‘carry on regardless’ attitude is being foisted onto Wales. It is founded in scientific denial, utilizing the failed badger interventions from England, and is also being promoted by Defra in Northern Ireland. The Government consultation on the Godfray review update (2025) with a refreshed bTB strategy is being awaited.  As yet, the nature of the interventions being considered is unclear: badger culling, vaccination or a fruitless combination of both, as greenlighted by the Godfray panel?

Targeted culling is back on the agenda

The reference of the board to bovine TB “clusters” could indicate that targeted culling is their preference whether or not it is dressed up in a new name. This was the subject of Defra’s March 2024 consultation, issued under the previous English Tory government. Neither the outgoing Tory, nor incoming Labour Government reported on its results (see link).

This 2024 consultation set out proposals for badger interventions in England. The focus was to be badger culling and vaccination in the targeted areas. These areas would be known as clusters, but would effectively be large cull areas, as before. The stated objective, based upon now obsolete science, was to reduce infection of cattle from badgers by killing most of the badgers in a given area. Culling was to continue until the cattle breakdowns inside the cluster had reduced to a level where it was no longer deemed to be a cluster. Badger vaccination was then to take place as an exit strategy.  The problem with this approach is that the risk of infection from badgers has yet to be evidenced, as has the efficacy of killing badgers to reduce bTB in cattle in the Low RIsk Area, as elsewhere.

In the Low Risk Area, government now say that they don’t need to see benefits from badger culling. BTB incidents will decline due to cattle measures, but they now say they do not need to ascribe any proportion of this decline to badger culling. They claim nevertheless, that badgers need to be culled because of the “perception” of risk. A complete fantasy veterinarian muddle. No need to see if it works – no certainty – just carry on regardless.  

Targeted culling follows same methods as failed English LRA culls?

As indicated above, targeted badger intervention (or epi-culling) broadly follows the Low Risk Area culling policy in England. But analysis of the data from the LRA cull areas in Cumbria and Lincolnshire gives no indication that any of the three areas, Lincolnshire 54, Cumbria 32 and Cumbria 73, have benefitted at all from culling.

Data from Badger control area 73 shows how it is the enhanced cattle measures and increased sensitivity of testing that have reduced bTB,  before culling was implemented.

The December meeting of The TB Eradication Programme Board

At the December meeting of the board (link here), Professor Glyn Hewinson, TB Advisory Group (TAG) Chair, gave a comprehensive presentation on his opinions about wildlife and bovine TB transmission, claiming the need for a national policy to prevent transmission from wildlife to cattle, and emphasising ‘evidence gaps’ in Wales. The board discussed the importance of an ‘evidence-based’, holistic approach, the necessity of further data, modelling, and stakeholder engagement. This is terminology that the failed Defra ‘songbook’ has  used for 13 years or more – it’s now being imposed on Wales.

But Defra is still resisting and apparently in denial about published science that shows that badger culling efficacy to date has been based on estimated benefits from flawed statistics (Torgerson et al 2024, Torgerson et al 2025, and Torgerson 2025). Evidence for a disease benefit from badger culling is equivocal at best. At worst it is held in place by conspiracy. Defra continues to ‘posit’ that industry led culling has resulted in a disease benefit to cattle, but is unable to produce evidence of this. And again resists published science that evidences a lack of benefit from industry led badger culling since 2013 (Langton et al). Defra has recently issued an apology for attacking the authors of this peer-reviewed paper in a manner that breached government standards. This is Defra’s second apology for getting it wrong.

Ominously, TBEPB vet & farming industry members reached agreement on both the wording and the overall strategic direction.

Even more ominously, the Chair noted that publication and subsequent engagement will require careful political handling, given the sensitivities surrounding the programme and its stakeholders.

Bad advice is ready to cripple BTB control in Wales for a generation by not heeding Defra’s English bTB failings. It began with the ashes of MAFF and has continued in the same scientifically flawed manner.

They can learn by listening, engaging with independent scientists. They must avoid advice from those who want to impose their long held mistakes and misunderstandings rather than admit error. It can be done now, or in court and the court of public opinion. It’s their choice.

 

Defra finally back down and retract “abusive and offensive” 2022 media blog

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On March 18th 2022, the journal Veterinary Record published a peer-reviewed scientific paper with an analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine TB in the High Risk area of England (see Langton et al. here). The authors were independent scientists; an ecologist and two vets. Using publicly available government data, the new paper had two main conclusions:

  1. Cattle-based measures implemented from 2010, and particularly the introduction of the annual tuberculin skin (SICCT) test were likely responsible for the slowing, levelling, peaking and decrease in bovine TB herd breakdowns in cattle in the High Risk Area (HRA) of England during the study period, all well before badger culling began to be rolled out in 2016.

  2. Multiple statistical models comparing culled and unculled areas failed to find any association between badger culling and either the incidence or prevalence of bovine TB in cattle herds.

A brief summary of the findings of the paper were blogged on the day it was published (here).

Having been given advance sight of the paper, Defra staff put in a huge effort to try to  prevent it from being published (see here). Failing to stop its publication, they then went into overdrive to try to undermine the authors and their findings. Defra produced a blog making outrageous and frankly libelous claims, which criticized the content & motivation of those involved in writing, reviewing, and publishing the paper. Describing the authors as ‘anti-cull activists’, they said:

“This paper has been produced to fit a clear campaign agenda and manipulates data in a way that makes it impossible to see the actual effects of badger culling on reducing TB rates. It is disappointing to see it published in a scientific journal.”

And,

“Experienced scientists from the Government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency have reviewed the report and found its analysis is scientifically flawed. It has manipulated the data in a way that makes it hard to understand the actual effects of badger culling and therefore its conclusions are wrong. Today, the Chief Veterinary Officer, Christine Middlemiss, and Chief Scientific Adviser, Gideon Henderson, have also published a letter in Vet Record, which rebuts the report’s claims. The CVO has also written a blog about this.”

Christine Middlemiss and Gideon Henderson did indeed publish a letter (not peer reviewed) alongside the paper in Vet Record on the same day. They produced what was called an ‘alternative analysis’ in the form of a graph, and claimed it showed that badger culling was ‘working’ in reducing bTB in cattle. Shockingly however, no attempt was made in their letter to separate the effects of culling from the effects of additional cattle measures introduced around the same time. Extra cattle measures were sometimes introduced before and during badger culling in cull areas, less so in unculled areas.

The CVO Christine Middlemiss also posted a blog on the Defra website using the same graph and the same arguments, again failing to separate the effects of additional cattle measures, but promising this would be dealt with in the APHA publication analysis to follow. However, the promised APHA report on the Badger Control Policy, eventually published in 2024 (Birch et al 2024) also failed to properly separate confounding factors. This was a fundamental problem with the paper which rendered it unable to ascribe any disease benefit at all to badger culling.

Returning to the 2022 Vet Record Middlemiss/Henderson letter, it was clear that their graph could not be reconciled with publicly available data. There followed repeated requests for Defra to supply the data that they had used and their methodology. Then six weeks after publication, Defra sent an email to the authors of the original paper stating:

“Following your recent correspondence about how incidence in unculled area was calculated we have re-examined our analyses and discovered an error we wish to bring to your attention.  The incidence in the area unculled throughout the period was calculated incorrectly. The incidence in cull areas is unchanged. We attach a corrected graph, with the corresponding data and workings as previously requested. We apologise for this error.”

BadgerCrowd blogged about this at the time (see here).

The 5th May 2022 ‘apology’ email from Defra mysteriously maintained that “this does not change the overall argument in the letter”. Defra did not respond to a reasoned criticism by the authors of their letter, published in Vet Record on 2nd April 2022 (see here), and refused a meeting to discuss it. A refusal that has been unhelpfully and unprofessionally maintained for the last four years.

On 23rd December 2025 (three and a half years later), and following repeated requests for removal of the abusive and offensive Defra media blog (offensive to all involved in the publishing process), a staff member emailed the lead author of the 2022 paper saying that there was:

“Agreement that the language and tone of the 18 March 2022 blog fell below an implicit expected standard, although it did not breach formal guidelines at the time. My recommendation is still for Defra to remove the blog in line with your request, if permitted to do so.”

However Defra also stated that this Defra media blog had not originated from the Henderson, Middlemiss or others in Defra/APHA, which seemed a bit suspicious. Who did write it then?

Now, four months on from that email and after lots of chasing, Defra have finally retracted their media blog, but not the CVO blog. That is still available online making flawed assumptions and misleading claims about the value of badger culling. Defra are still refusing to engage with the independent scientists, despite promises from the Minister in 2024 and throughout 2025, that they would.

No peer-reviewed scientific rebuttal to Langton et al (2022) has thus far been published.

Unfortunately, other government websites still present the public with flawed and out of date information. TBHub, the online information service produced by the government-funded farming industry promoter the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, still presents incorrect and out-of-date science.

TbHub still bases its ‘facts’ on the flawed RBCT analysis which has now been shown to be equivocal at best (Torgerson et al 2024 and Torgerson et al 2025). It still uses out-of-date factsheets citing papers that are now shown to be based on flawed assumptions and implausible statistical methods. Many from the farming and veterinary industry still clamour for culling due to 25 years of Defra misinformation, with its chosen scientists still pointing to badgers as a significant problem. Defra agreed last December that TbHub website should be updated in line with recently published science, yet nothing has been done.

Why is everything so difficult. Why don’t government engage with independent stakeholders as the civil service guidelines require. Are they afraid of reprisals from industry if things have been wrong? So, is carrying on regardless the plan? No wonder industry is so confused across the British Isles.

Badger culling in England has finished…. for now

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January 2026 saw the completion of the Intensive and Supplementary badger culls in England. This left only one remaining ‘live’ culling licence; the Low-Risk area cull in Cumbria, Area 73.
 
After much rumour this month, with APHA telling Cumbrian farmers ‘it is badger vaccination or nothing this year’, Defra have now stated that in Area 73 “badger culling….is not expected to resume this year“.
 
This is great news. We should take a moment to celebrate……… the failed badger culls are over, maybe even forever.
 
However, Defra’s statement includes the exasperating line: “While measures aimed at wildlife can be important tools for disease control, cattle testing and surveillance is, and always has been, the foundation of our bovine TB strategy”.
 
In other words, despite the huge controversy hanging over the 2025 Godfray review science update, Defra remain in denial over the uncertainty and lack of evidence around the involvement of wildlife in bovine TB, as well as the lack of evidence of a disease benefit to cattle from any badger intervention.
 
As long as this remains the case, the threat of culling in England remains. And farmers and politicians in Wales and across Ireland will continue to demand that bTB policy includes badger culling.
 
So celebrate the end of a dark time for disease control by  government vets for now, but the reality is that government staff advising those in charge have not changed their view that badgers are significant part of the problem & need some sort of intervention; culling or vaccination. The Godfray panel last September made a provision for them to be able to keep this belief alive. 
 
Meanwhile the NFU are stuck in Owen Paterson’s ‘all the tools in the box’ mentality, unable to move on and to follow the science and evidence. It seems that they, like so many others, are trapped in their opinions by the implications of having given the wrong advice to others over the last 13 years or longer. Personal pride before public interest. It is time to move on and engage in real solutions.

Bovine TB strategy refresh is already stale

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Failure to co-design bTB control strategy is coming to a head. Time to ring the alarm bells?

At the end of March, Defra Minister Angela Eagle and some of her bovine TB team met with a handful of representatives from the wildlife NGO’s (non government organisations) to talk about future strategy. Invitations were limited to a few Wildlife and Countryside Link members only: Born Free, Badger Trust, Humane World for Animals, RSPCA. Where were the larger nature conservation ngo’s one wonders. By special invitation, Protect the Wild were allowed to send a single representative. Defra also met with the NFU separately, as they do constantly.

Labour’s ‘refreshed’ bovine TB policy has now been delayed until ‘late spring’ (late May/early June?), but the meeting came far too late in the day for input into a document had been anticipated in April. The new strategy ‘refresh’ was originally to be ‘co-designed’ by all stakeholders, including independent scientists, and the NGO’s wanted to known why this had not happened. The governments hand picked external scientists, who have supported the claimed need for a badger cull for many years were once again heavily consulted along with the NFU. But the recently published British and overseas independent scientists with alternative views were refused dialogue, let alone input. So was this meeting perhaps just a consolation prize? A ‘pat on the head’ tick-box exercise to say that the ‘badger supporters’ had been involved in the process?

Angela Eagle announced, as she did at the Westminster Hall debate last October, that badger culling was coming to an end. No more intensive or supplementary cull licenses would be issued. There was no decision on the continuation of the one outstanding Low Risk Area cull in Cumbria, but apparently badger culling would be stopped at the earliest opportunity.

Worryingly however, Eagle apparently still referred to the need to maintain the ‘trust’ of the farmers via badger interventions. This seems to be an extension of Natural England’s decision in 2024 to continue badger culling, in order to provide the farmers with ‘clarity’. And going back further into the history books, it is the ‘carrot’ incentive for farmers to accept more regular bTB testing. A senior politician who spoke to vet John Bourne after the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT), was quoted as saying “Fine John, we accept your science, but we have to offer the farmers a carrot. And the only carrot we can possibly give them is culling badgers.” In other words, it looks very much like the badger remains a scapegoat for a cattle disease. Have we really not moved on after the unnecessary and cruel culling of a quarter of a million largely healthy badgers?

But even more worrying than that, as outlined by Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer Eleanor Brown in a Veterinary Record feature article a few weeks ago, the door to culling is being kept open via ‘epidemiological culling’ and possibly by what was originally called ‘reactive culling’, or localized culling. None of this, however, has been discussed or described and it may be that the Minister is not actually aware of Defra’s detailed plans and its implications. It may not even be her concern if there is a reshuffle after the May elections, and it could well be that the ‘bad news’ or a policy fudge is being kept until then.

A form of ‘targeted’ (epidemiological or Low Risk Area-type culling) would bring a 100% badger kill approach to a core area, with some badger vaccination afterwards. Levels of application planned are unclear but the undercurrent is ‘carry on culling’, even if there is a gap between the Ministers intentions, and that of her staff. BTB can remain hidden in a herd despite testing for at least 15 years (see here), and it is well known that it can  be missed by routine testing. If a farm vet is unable to easily trace a source of infection to a failed reactor within a herd or a recently purchased animal, might they, as is done routinely in the Low Risk Area, just point a finger at badgers and request a license to cull? Or might a licence not even be required for this this new type of cull?

The  APHA ‘Disease Pathways’ form used by vets at breakdown sites has effectively been attributing disease to badgers by default for years (see here). This has resulted in outlandish claims regarding the proportion of cattle disease that originates directly from badgers. But results from culling trials and industry-led culling have been unable to show a disease benefit in cattle at all from badger culling (see here, here and here). In reality, BTB transmission from badger to cattle may occur on rare occasions (as with other mammals), but remains undemonstrated and more importantly, biologically implausible at any significant level. There is no credible evidence that badger vaccination can assist either. Despite this, new vaccination schemes have recently been awarded Defra contracts (reported by Vet Time here). 

Worryingly Angela Eagle seems to think that badger vaccination had been embraced by the wildlife community. Has she been misinformed by her staff? 

And most worrying of all, any decisions on culling might yet be placed at the whim of the Chief Veterinary Officer or her Deputy without broader scrutiny. This was the plan for targeted culling that Labour blocked against entrenched staff wishes. Unless Eagle is careful, a method to allow Defra staff to ‘cull at will’ may be endorsed. This would be an effective U-turn on Labour’s pre-election manifesto pledge and could be legally challenged.

Defra Civil Servants have continued to rely for advice on a single group of scientists who have supported their own decisions and publications around culling for over twenty years. Those scientists and Civil Servants are now strongly linked together in an ineffective policy that they are afraid to admit was based on flawed science and has failed. They have no scientific answers at all. They have gone to ground, refusing to engage with any of the independent published scientists to find a robust way forward.

So whilst some might believe from media postings that badger culling has been pushed onto the back burner for now, it is still a Defra intention for the Labour government. It could easily be back in England, Wales and across Ireland in 2027 (or earlier) if current subterfuge persists.

With an election in Wales due in early May, and polls suggesting a battle for victory between Reform and Plaid Cymru, Welsh badgers could be the losers. Reform support targeted culling in their 2026 manifesto. Whilst Plaid Cymru do not mention it in their manifesto, they have previously argued for “scientifically validated” culling and control methods to manage infected wildlife populations. 

Meanwhile in Ireland, a cross-border partnership with DAERA and DAFM aims to undertake a two year Test, Vaccinate or Remove (TVR) programme on badgers. This is despite a recent report on a large scale study in Northern Ireland that could demonstrate no evidence of any clear bTB cattle benefit from TVR in a high-density badger area.

The decision making on all these policies will be by the same scientists and Civil Servants who have been calling the shots and unwilling to accept that they could have been giving misleading advice for years. Badger culling has not yet been safely consigned to the history books where it belongs.

Without proper independent consultation for the strategy refresh, this was always likely to be the outcome. Defra has been able to get around the Labour manifesto pledge relatively easily. It seems that the situation will remain as long as the same Defra staff are allowed to hide away and cover up a litany of errors. They are remaining unaccountable and have ignored Professor Mark Brewer’s strongest suggestion that a “proper investigation be conducted to establish an agreed position involving all parties” (see here).

Will Defra advise Labour to U-turn and allow badger culling?

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Minister Angela Eagle

The Westminster Hall debate on badger culling last October, attended by Defra Minister Angela Eagle, gave the impression that under a Labour administration, badger culling was finally going to give way to badger vaccination. Intensive and supplementary badger killing licences finished at the end of January 2026, leaving just one Low Risk Area cull area in Cumbria which may or may not continue this year.

But a recent (28 February) lengthy feature article in Vet Record (VR) on BTB and wildlife, suggests otherwise. Quoting the Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer Ms Eleanor Brown extensively, a different future is being defined ahead of a new strategy consultation, scheduled for spring. In 2024 Defra Minister Daniel Zeichner promoted the concept of widespread and extensive badger vaccination at scale. Ms Brown is quoted saying ‘I don’t think badger vaccination is a like-for-like replacement on scale for culling.’

Last autumn, the ‘Godfray panel’ review update (2025) still insisted that badger intervention is necessary, and the evidence suggests APHA is now trying to get Labour to do both in equal measure. The article states: “Vet Record understands the possibility of allowing some small-scale ‘epidemiologically led’ culling may be kept open by the government as a contingency.’

So, far from being consigned to the history books, the so-called epi-culling (that resembles closely the scrapped ‘targeted culling’) is being rebranded  in an attempt to recover it as a policy option. Epi-culling, or targeted culling is very similar to Low Risk Area policy. This was invented in 2018 based upon Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) science, where the aim is to cull 100% of badgers in specific large areas around bTB ‘hotspots’, where cattle mismanagement has allowed disease spread. This has already been happening in Cumbria and Lincolnshire but without demonstrable benefit. A report on the extensive problems around this approach and its miserable inability to contribute to disease control in cattle is available here.

What happened to the extensive and widespread use of badger vaccination? It was never going to happen. It is far too expensive and difficult to implement and nobody wants it. The farmers don’t want it and the voluntary sector don’t want it, not least because it keeps a distracting finger of blame pointing at badger and wastes huge resources. The VR article says that Defra claims that there is ‘a significant body of scientific evidence‘ underpinning the use of badger vaccination as a tool to control bTB in both badgers and cattle. It points to a recent published essay by APHA that quotes many outdated studies. Whilst there is evidence to suggest badger vaccination can offer protection to badgers, there is no evidence that it can offer protection to cattle. Any such claims rely on the efficacy of badger culling, which despite claims to the contrary, remains uncertain at best.

The VR article mistakenly implies that the Birch et al. (2024) paper by APHA staff in Scientific Reports, concluded a 50% disease benefit from badger culling. The reality is that the authors published that they were unable to separate the effects of badger culling from the effects of additional cattle measures that were introduced concurrently. The Birch paper incorrectly reported that Gamma testing did not take place in the first two years of culling and omitted other vital factors (see here and here). Badger Crowd has written extensively about this (see here). Prof David Macdonald’s views on this can be read here.

Prof Roland Kao, who is Chair of Defra’s Science Advisory Council, is quoted in one of the least convincing and least decisive statements yet as saying “In some areas there’s really strong evidence of a lot of circulation of the bacteria  in the badger population, and that means they are probably likely to play a relatively big part in maintaining it there. But in other places thats probably not true.” He says “..what you need is an agile response” supporting or perhaps originating the apparent Defra change of direction.

The VR Feature is sadly an exemplar of introducing a discussion on the wrong premise, so that the views of the interviewees follow a chosen narrative to conclusion. Near the start it says “Few, if any, people with even a passing familiarity with evidence on bTB would deny that badgers can become infected with Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bTB, and that there can be transmission from badgers to cattle, and vice versa, as well as within populations of each.”

Perhaps few people would deny that badgers can transmit bTB to cattle because it has been shown to be physically possible if you confine the two species together in a small building for months (Little et al 1982 ). But the point is that there is insufficient scientific evidence that badgers (or any other infected wild mammal for that matter) transmit bTB to cattle outdoors at a level to warrant intervention. Recently published science shows that badger culling did not have a measurable positive or negative effect on bTB breakdowns in cattle (see Torgerson et al 2024, Torgerson 2025 & Langton et al 2022).

Speculating, the VR Feature says “It is possible that evidence arising from this (badger vaccination)  non-lethal intervention (implemented because ‘culling is ineffective’) could end up suggesting that culling may have helped reduce bTB in cattle in some areas, but we must wait and see.”

Evidence from Freedom of Information responses shows that Defra will be looking to use data being generated by recent and new badger vaccination schemes to try to show some benefit from culling followed by vaccination, over vaccination alone. It seems that they intend to do this using ‘herd based’ data; i.e. data that only Defra have access to because of (false) interpretation of rules around farm privacy and an unwillingness to share. This will give it more opportunity for selective use of data without any external scrutiny.

Meanwhile, an eight year study in the Republic of Ireland recently published here, was unable to find any difference between disease levels in places with badger culling and vaccination, and places with culling or with no-culling. A cross border EU funded scheme recently announced (see here), is nevertheless planning a Test Vaccinate Scheme (TVR) which will once again be killing badgers in what is being called an experiment.

Consultation conundrum

Defra are in a difficult position. They face legal challenge if they try to impose a new strategy without asking for views. They had planned to do this, but no one would be happy with that. The failure to involve stakeholders in co-design of the refreshed policy is a major problem. Defra have had a strategy to involve only favoured individuals, and have kept away from even talking to independent academics and issue campaigners. This is a terrible look, a result of habit rather than common sense.

Defra also have to get it past a Minister who will instinctively be suspicious. Reynolds and Eagle may just disappear with Starmer if the May elections go badly in the revolving door of Defra leadership. Not yet up to speed on detail, the Minister may spot the lack of probity in Defra’s plan and not be so easily led as Zeichner. We will see.

If the Defra civil servants win, it might lead to not so much a “renewed policy” from Labour, just culling by a different name. Which will not go down well with the public ……

 

 

2025 News round-up

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January

On 30th January 2025, Defra issued Terms of Reference for a ‘comprehensive new bovine TB review’, as part of a refreshed bTB eradication strategy, first announced in August 2024 (see here). A panel for the new review, was to be chaired, as previously, by Professor Sir Charles Godfray. It was his work (with others) and his advice that was used to help establish and maintain badger culling from 2013. Godfray, rooted at Oxford University, has long been associated with those designing and undertaking aspects of the controversial Randomised Badger Culling Trial (1998 – 2005). Indeed, he chaired its so-called ‘independent’ statistical audit (Godfray et al 2004).

Following discovery of serious statistical irregularities in the key 2006 RBCT proactive badger culling publication in more recent years, lead author Christl Donnelly, Professor of Applied Statistics at Oxford University, recused herself from the panel. But surprisingly, she was replaced by a recently arrived colleague Professor Sir Bernard Silverman FRS, Emeritus Professor of Statistics, also at Oxford University.

Other panel members, of what later in the year became known as the Strategy review ‘refresh’ or ‘update’, were the same as in the 2018 review: Professor Glyn Hewinson CBE of Aberystwyth University, Professor Michael Winter OBE University of Exeter and Professor James Wood OBE of University of Cambridge. So once again, it was largely the same set of academics as appointed in 2017, looking at the science in which they personally have a historical interest and potentially, future stake. With the new findings to be read alongside the earlier review, despite much of the 2018 material being superfluous or out of date.

Defra refused to adequately address multiple protests against the panel  appointments for  ‘conflict of interest’, simply saying those concerned were ‘esteemed’ and ‘distinguished’; that was enough for Defra. They later said the checking system relied on members own self-referral.

February

On February 15th, Prof Ian Boyd,  past Defra Chief Scientific Advisor (as Badger culling was developed) and  major influence in the culling of over 250,000 mostly healthy badgers), was the guest of Sir Charles Godfray in Oxford, for Boyd’s book promotion (Science and Politics). Bovine TB and badgers was the most mentioned topic, but the wider issue was of politics distorting the scientific process in general. Boyd’s main thrust appeared to be to point a finger at politicians (‘charlatans’ he calls them in the book) and also at the Royal Society. 

Boyd suggested that 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. He wished he had known more about Bovine TB before taking on his role. You can read more about who said what here.

March-May

Spring 2025 saw new scientific papers on badger vaccination, the Test / Vaccinate / Remove (TVR) approach and even badger contraception. This flurry of papers from government scientists seemed to be looking to satisfy the politicians stated aim to switch from badger culling to non-lethal methods. But with TVR lurking in the background as a potential closet return to culling.  

Robertson et al (2025) claimed that “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.” But without direct evidence and yet again stretching and trying to normalize APHA’s efforts to cause-argue policy from equivocal science, dubious assumptions and partisan models. Along exactly the same lines (and almost as if to provide Boyd fresh evidence for his government science take-down), Smith & Budgey (2025) reported that a “combined approach of vaccination and selective culling (TVR) based on test results may give a more robust method of disease management than just vaccination on its own.”

The preprint by Palphramand et al (2025) (to be published in Science Direct Jan 2026) suggests that “co-administration of BCG vaccine and and GonaCon (a contraceptive) enhances the protective effect of the booster vaccination.” This is research work carried out on a small captive population of badgers caught from the wild.

June

Supplementary badger culling was authorized for a further year on June 1st. Natural England‘s scientific rationale for licensing did not take into account the Torgerson et al (2024) preprint which highlighted serious statistical issues with the Mills et al (I & II) (2024) upon which they relied. In doing so, it continued with its policy of ignoring key stakeholders and relevant evidence and simply obeying Defra’s mandate to carry on culling thousands more badgers, despite mounting evidence against it’s efficacy.

On 11th June, The Royal Society published Torgerson et al (2025), undermining the RBCT conclusions of a disease benefit from proactive badger culling. This effectively removed any credible scientific rationale for it. Defra did not respond to the new publication. You can read more about this paper & its significance as a watershed moment for British biological sciences here.

On June 12th, a day later, the BBC reported that “Farmers to get support vaccinating badgers”, confirming that badgers would continue to take substantial blame for bovine TB in cattle. Clearly, Steve Reed, Daniel Zeichner, and the Defra Ministers continue to be misled by their personnel who are unable to admit (due perhaps to responsibility for financial waste and pride / position), that badger culling has been both unnecessary and worthless.

July


On 30th July, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Green received a reply to her written Parliamentary Question:

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the paper by Torgerson and others published in the Royal Society Open Journal on 11 June claiming that other studies of badger culls contain methodological weaknesses; and what plans they have, if any, to ensure that the Cornwall Badger Vaccination Pilot has a peer-reviewed protocol before any work can continue.”

Junior Minister Sue Hayman replied for the government saying “Unlike previous badger culling studies, the Cornwall Badger Project is focused on testing different methods of delivering badger vaccination, rather than evaluating the impact on bovine TB in cattle.”

So all the Cornish badger vaccination project can hope to show is whether Cornish farmers are prepared to engage.

August

In late July/early August it was widely reported that Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire (subject of TV show ‘Clarkson’s Farm’) had gone down with bTB reactors, having bought cattle from sources with relatively recent breakdowns.


Whilst The Daily Telegraph foolishly speculated that “the presenter was unable to stop transmission of the bacteria from badger to cow”, epidemiologist James Wood on Farming Today said “The challenge is with this [testing] system, the controls are imperfect, so that when we clear a farm with TB we know that a proportion that maybe as high as 25 or 50%, a proportion will have one or two animals that are still likely to be infected.” Clarkson expressed doubt about testing and a need for information and then went silent as several of his stock were destroyed. No doubt Defra were nervous of the high profile of the story, and aware of how its flawed bTB testing system could be more widely exposed. See our blog on the story here.

September

In September, the delayed (due in June) Godfray review update was published (see here). Key points:

  1. It confirms (page 75) in a massive ‘wake-up’ finding, that Torgerson et al (2024 & 2025) papers do show that the key 2006 RBCT proactive badger culling paper by Donnelly and others in Nature journal got the modelling hopelessly wrong. This has massive implications for a wide number of papers and official  reports that have used that paper’s calculations to build further models and create policy and financial estimates.
  2. Remarkably, it went to the lengths of producing its own new (binomial) model, claiming a culling benefit, but with lower statistical significance (it has gone from P < 0.005 to P < 0.05). However, there were mistakes and multiple issues with this model that were outlined in a new preprint by Prof Paul Torgerson (here), also posted September 2025. There has been no subsequent response from Defra. The authors have made some rudimentary remarks about agreeing to differ and the differences being subtle, which they certainly are not.
  3. The manner in which the new model was checked before publication is subject to close scrutiny due to suspected irregularities.
  4. The “bTB perturbation effect hypothesis” (used to justify culling healthy badgers) became un-evidenced, as it is statistically unsupported by Godfray’s model (as well as Torgerson’s models), undoing the RBCT conclusions even more comprehensively (see here) and triggering calls for retraction of key papers (see here).
  5. It failed to deliberate on the ‘confirmed’ versus ‘unconfirmed’ continuum in the identification of reactors, that was clarified in 2018, but not by the 2018 review. This obfuscates on what is a central issue, both in bTB testing and badger culling science. The panel just feebly recommended further research. This is despite Natural England formally asking the Godfray panel to focus on it.
  6. It inexcusably repeated errors in Birch et al (2024), notably the under-declaration of interferon gamma use (see here and here) which was introduced at the same time as badger culling and makes it impossible to separate the effects of badger culling from cattle measures. It also mistakenly claims it evaluated “before-after differences in treated units with those in untreated units” which is a very worrying mis-reading of the methods. Birch was a time series study, with no comparison of separate culled and unculled areas.
  7. It uses an unpublished report that the panel asked specially to be made available (Robertson et al (2025) to claim that Langton et al (2022) may not have detected a disease benefit had there been one. The unconvincing efforts in this preprint have been addressed here (Langton 2025).

October

On 13th October, there was a much awaited Westminster Hall debate (view here) on ending badger culling, precipitated by a 100,000 parliamentary petition coordinated by the successful lobbyists and wild animal protection advocates Protect the Wild. Although the two-hour session was a massive improvement on previous dreadful badger cull debates (reflecting the cull of dinosaur politicians lost in the 2024 general election), it remained (perhaps not surprisingly) ‘behind the curve’ on recently published science.  Happily, the majority of voices spoke earnestly about a wish to stop badger culling and address TB testing failures and to manage the disease effectively. Minister Angela Eagle reaffirmed Labours commitment to ending the badger cull by the end of this Parliament, with the possibility of all culls ending in 2026 following a review of the last cull area (no. 73) in Cumbria in the New Year. However, it is likely that Defra will do everything in its power to prevent this, via introducing TVR pilots.

Also in October 2025, Prof. Torgerson published a letter in Veterinary Record (see here) reporting his request for a  retraction of the Donnelly et al (2006) paper by Nature journal.

November & December

Meanwhile in Northern Ireland, a Parliamentary question by Miss Michelle McIlveen (from the DUP) tabled on November 18th made it clear that a €6.4m investment for a cross-border pilot regional cooperation programme on tackling bovine TB had been secured, with use of TVR as an experiment. This was leaked by the Ulster Farmers Union who wanted intensive badger culling and exposed DAERA’s attempt to instigate lethal interventions, despite previous undertakings not to do so without consultation.

On 2nd December Andrew Muir (Minister of DAERA of Northern Ireland), responding to a further Parliamentary Question about this funding replied that “Wildlife Intervention is a key part of that plan, which is why we will consult on wildlife intervention options in the spring of next year.”

So it looks like badger interventions are part of the bTB control plans in Northern Ireland, going forwards with a clumsy attempt to use TVR as a route towards wider culling. This is the approach already shown to be unnecessary by correct use of RBCT data, the post 2013 industry culling in England and long term badger culling and vaccination in the Republic of Ireland.

A letter published 13th December in Vet Record (here) raised questions concerning the continuation of badger blame following criticisms of the recent Godfray review. A response from the Godfray review panel was published alongside, repeating their view that “reasonable people can disagree about the best way to analyse complex data“. They remain, however, like Defra, unwilling to enter into a discussion on any of the analyses.

The Badger Trust / Wild Justice Judicial Review hearing against Natural England (on an incorrect reason for granting 2024 Supplementary badger cull licences) listed to start on 16th December was postponed due to “a court administrative error”. The case will now be relisted “sometime in 2026”.

And there has been much more going on, bubbling along beneath the surface that is work in progress, and that we will report on when we are able. We had hoped for better in 2025, with the science supporting badger culling now completely undone. But it looks as if it will take a little longer before the fundamental importance of the new publications is understood and accepted.

Thanks go to….

As in previous years, Badger Crowd would like to thank the hundreds of people who have worked together to support this years work to expose and halt the cruel and needless killing of badgers as a part of ineffective livestock disease control. As the mass culling of in the region of 6,000 badgers in 2025/6 is completed at the end of January 2026, there is still no formal recognition from Defra that this has been one of their biggest wildlife blunders.

It is thanks to all of you that we have collectively been able to protest, campaign, lobby, publish and report, and we can only hope that next year finally sees some truth and honesty from those who would seek to cover up the sins of the past. Particular thanks are due to all at Protect The Wild for their relentless public awareness work, especially the successful government petition and Westminster debate, backed by the general public. Also to Betty Badger (aka Mary Barton) and friends who maintained the Thursday vigil outside Defra offices, protesting the injustice (see article in the Spectator). Thanks also to the regular forums of the national ‘Voices for Badgers‘ network, the tireless Oxford Badger Group and so many others who have campaigned, donated and supported. And not to forget those who put endless hours in to protect badgers and their setts from multiple threats in their own areas. A massive shout out too to all those in the field, unblocking illegally infilled badger setts and those opposing snares. New legislation could be on the way – we certainly hope so. Thanks to all for your strength and determination.

It was the combined care and effort of all those taking a stand, no matter how large or small, that is helping bring mass badger culling to an end in England. We must now continue our opposition to culling in Ireland. We must ensure that accurate science now guides policy away from unnecessary, unverifiable and cruel protected species interventions. Badger culling must not be allowed to continue or ever happen again. There is much work still to be done, but the continued determination and energy of so many can prevail.

‘Perturbation Effect Hypothesis’ for badgers and Bovine TB is now unevidenced

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The ‘perturbation effect hypothesis’ is the reported ‘negative’ effect of reactive and proactive badger culling, described in the Donnelly et al (2006) paper “Positive and negative effects of widespread badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle” and also many other publications since 2003. The 2006 paper was one of the key published papers reporting on the findings of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial experiment (RBCT) 1998-2005.

RBCT reporting (Bourne et al 2007) theorized that culling could increase cattle TB incidence in culled and neighbouring (surrounding) areas by disrupting badgers’ territorial organization, resulting in their increased dispersal and theorised spread of disease within badgers and on to cattle. It was the ‘perturbation effect hypothesis’ that grabbed attention and  initially delayed the consideration of badger culling, because of the claim that it was why badger culling might make bovine TB cattle herd breakdowns increase.

The RBCT had three sets of trial areas; these were pro-active culling (badger density reduced by average 70%, reactive culling (100% culling around breakdown farms only), and no-cull control areas.

The ‘reactive’ arm of the RBCT culling trial was cancelled early because the experimenters suggested that bovine TB had increased. In reality, and mistakenly, insufficient data had been generated to propose any such result. A review by UK Chief Scientific Adviser Prof David King, suggested later (2007) that mass proactive badger culling could plausibly reduce bTB cattle breakdowns if done over a large enough area (to hard boundaries) and avoiding any perturbation effects if they existed at all (King 2007). This itself was stated without competent statistical checks; it was the perturbation effect hypothesis that drove mass culling of mostly healthy badgers over large areas as opposed to localized culling.

And so that is what has been undertaken since 2013. Instead of using reactive culling at and around known breakdown farms, ‘Intensive Culling’ was, over a period of years, rolled out over much of the High Risk Area and then the Edge Area. Often regardless of the local land use or the disease risk, if the ‘cull zone’ land was in the High Risk Area, the target was to kill 70% of the badger population, although the size of the population was often poorly understood and ‘guesstimated’. The result has been that over the last 13 years, more than 250,000 largely completely healthy badgers have been culled to unknown densities, using mainly a method opposed as causing unnecessary suffering by the British Veterinary Association.

Recent re-evaluation of the RBCT data and modelling has shown that there is an “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle”, (Torgerson et al 2024, Torgerson 2025). There are no positive and no negative effects, because that is the true conclusion from normal and credible statistical appraisal and data selection from the RBCT experiment.

While badgers, like deer and other mammals both domestic and wild can be infected with bovine TB, the extent to which they may be responsible for a small proportion of cattle herd infections, especially in intensive livestock systems is unknown. If it occurs, there is no reliable data available that wildlife transmission to cattle can establish, maintain or  perpetuate – this falsehood has been normalised by a few authors keen to bolster wrong claims. Indeed the strongest available evidence lacks indication that wildlife controls, such as culling badgers, has an effect on reducing the incidence of tuberculosis in cattle. Failures of the bTB cattle testing system, on the other hand, allowing infection to hide and to be spread via cattle sales is widely understood and accepted.

The binomial analysis of the RBCT proactive cull data in the September 2025 Godfray panel policy review update, claims that there is still a benefit from badger culling, but at a much lower level of significance (P <0.05).  However, this model leaves out the data for the all-important variable ‘time at risk’, which was also the downfall of the 2006 Poisson analysis of RBCT data. It provides no support for any effect of badger culling on cattle herd bTB breakdowns when undertaken correctly (see here). But by presenting the model as preferable to that in Donnelly 2006, it effectively removes the analysis that suggested a negative effect – the ‘perturbation effect hypothesis’ is therefore unsupported.

Thirteen years of the ineffective culling of quarter of a million badgers has been scientifically unjustified and why it was ineffective is now plain to see. There are no evidenced effects of badger culling, either positive or negative. Badger interventions of any kind are simply not be justified on the core policy science.

The upcoming Bovine TB control strategy refresh needs to reflect what has happened to the understanding of scientific developments in recent years and months.  It is time to remove perceptions and obstacles based upon incorrect analysis and incorrect derivative studies, and to get on with the necessary enhanced cattle testing measures that are known to work but held back by unnecessary red tape. Before more money and resources are wasted, before animal welfare harm perpetuates, and before more rural lives are ruined. At the moment, policy is unsubstantiated, supported by unconvincing advice, based on biased conflicted opinions and uncertain evidence.

BTB control contradictions at the APHA

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In late November 2025 APHA published online their annual report on bTB for last year: “Bovine tuberculosis in England in 2024 Epidemiological analysis of the 2024 surveillance data and historical trends in cattle.” It is a disappointing read.

In 2023, APHA said:

“A new Disease Report Form (DRF), for recording cattle TB incident investigations, is under development. This aims to enhance data capture and review the methodology around how we assess source attribution to improve understanding of TB transmission pathways and the evidence base for biosecurity advice.”

But in their latest report, APHA are once again using the tired, outdated and discredited veterinary ‘risk pathways’ approach (see chapter 2 of this 2023 report.). It has still not been properly revised, and is being used again to speculate about the source of new infections. As a result, APHA continue to point ‘by default’ to badgers. They do this by ignoring the thousands of undisclosed infections from breakdown herds incorrectly declared bTB-Free each year due to the flawed testing regime that they have imposed on farmers for decades. These herds get rid of higher risk animals to other farms and at auction for years after they have been suspended following the identification of reactors. The APHA are very well aware of this.

This undetected disease in the herd continues to be overlooked for reasons that remain unclear. Perhaps one reason for the apparent intransigence to this overwhelming problem is that disruption to the industry supply-lines are limited, but the result is that the epidemic continues across England.

Let us remind ourselves that this ‘risk pathways’ system is based on a tick-based form that is completed by farm vets, who when invited to speculate on the likely origin of infection, and seem unable to link it to a previous cattle infection, possibly due to lack of information – just tick the box that blames badgers. No evidence required and the farmer is reassured it’s not their purchasing that has led to a breakdown. But……………..

Cattle testing is missing us to half of infected animals

  • It is now accepted that the standard SICCT test, at standard interpretation, has a low average sensitivity of around 50%, thus missing up to half of infected animals. Some would say lower.
Standard SICCT test, at standard interpretation, has a low average sensitivity of around 50%
Standard SICCT test, at standard interpretation, has a low average sensitivity of around 50%
  • Government’s external vet of choice, Cambridge University’s James Wood claimed on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today earlier this year that: “The challenge is with this [testing] system, the controls are imperfect, so that when we clear a farm with TB we know that a proportion that maybe as high as 25 or 50%, a proportion will have one or two animals that are still likely to be infected.“
  • A study in Switzerland found suggested persistence of bovine TB in a dairy herd for nearly fifteen years without detection.
  • New studies have been testing bulk milk tanks on farms for bTB  antibodies using Enferplex testing (1,2) essentially doing a whole-farm bTB test in one go, indicating  that up to 40% of dairy herds have bTB infection.

Let’s blame badgers anyway

These shocking facts make a nonsense of the new APHA report and the ridiculous levels of badger transmission suggested. It is just so confused and contradictory. It states that  over half of new TB incidents occurring in 2024 in England, and nearly 60% of those in the HRA, were disclosed in herds that had experienced a TB incident in the preceding 3 years (recurrent herd incidents). These are herds that will be selling out infected surplus stock on a routine basis. Therefore, recurrent infection of cattle herds remains an important driver of the epidemic in these risk areas (Table1.1).

But at the same time it claims that the main risk pathway identified across all HRA counties during veterinary investigations was via potential exposure to infected badgers, which supposedly accounted for a weighted contribution of between 37.1% (Devon) and 67.2% (Shropshire).  So over half of new incidents are in herds that previously had TB (and this doesn’t account for disease from brought-in stock), but at the same time up to around one to two thirds are blamed on badgers. And it actually contends with pure guesswork, that “Recurrent herd incidents can occur due to a number of factors which includes residual infection, exposure to infected wildlife, poor biosecurity and high risk trading practices, amongst others” when it knows a large majority is infection breaking out again from within herds where it has been present all along.

This is veterinary nonsense and it just has to be queried who is in charge. Why do the APHA want to keep reporting such speculative claims? The most obvious reason is that bTB is totally beyond the current control system. Surely they cannot believe that it is anything other than the daily sale of inadequately tested stock that maintains the disease. Stock that in Wales, it is now unlawful to sell. Whatever happened to risk-based trading? Why does APHA hide the reality that newly OTF breakdown herd stock are massively risky?

And there is no acknowledgement of recently published science that shows that culling badgers during the Randomised Badger Culling Trials,(see here and here) and during the industry led culls (here) since 2013 cannot be shown to have resulted in any disease benefit. The central evidence for badgers being a significant source of infection is now absent. So why this continuing fixation with trying to blame badgers? Is the problem just too big for anyone to take responsibility? Why did they throw the most experienced cattle vet off the BTB partnership for exposing why the current testing system has failed in dairy herds?  

APHA are an organization that appear frozen in their capacity to change, despite the growing evidence of systems failure. This is a report for 2024 and there is nothing to suggest this year will be any different. APHA surround themselves with those who want to blame and kill or interfere with badgers, often it might seem just to hide their past oversights. When their badger policy since 2013 is an epidemiological mistake of epic proportions, heaping prolonged misery and suffering on cows, farmers and badgers at public expense and with no end in sight.

Additional References

(1) Hayton, A. (2025) Can Bulk Milk Revolutionise TB testing? A study to examine the contribution of bulk milk testing to bovine tuberculosis(bTB) surveillance and control in Great Britain. British cattle Veterinary Association Congress, Edinburgh 9-11 Oct. 2025.

(2) Hayton, A., Watson, E. and Banos, G. (2023), Bulk milk testing for bTB surveillance. Veterinary Record, 192: 85-85. https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.2670

 

 

Low Risk Area (LRA) culling must be scrapped for good

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A Cumbria badger bloodbath

At the Westminster Hall Debate on the 13th October, Angela Eagle the Defra Minister of State confirmed that the badger cull would come to an end in February 2026 in all but one area. Cull Area no. 73, south of Carlisle, was initiated by Labour as a new cull zone last year (around what was called hotspot 29). It is large (183 sq km), and it can potentially run for up to five years (to 2029) with a 100% kill target, and some vaccination of any survivors. Voters have been incensed that despite Labours pledge to stop the culling that they described in their manifesto as ‘ineffective’, not only has it continued, but this new zone has been added..

So why oh why did Labour do this, when the two previous low risk area (LRA) culls have absolutely nothing at all to show in terms of bovine TB benefit for cattle herds? (See reports & addendum updates here). Pressure came from the local branch of the NFU who said  that they had been promised culling north of the initial cull area, Cumbria Area 32, that culled hundreds of badgers from 2018 (see more here). And APHA gave in, under Labour’s nose, with Natural England issuing licences to “maintain the confidence of the farming community”. Daniel Zeichner did nothing to stop it, before he was fired, after little more than a year in post.

And Natural England (NE) who issue the culling licenses, decided to ignore an independent expert report (left) showing why LRA culling is based on circumstantial information and assumptions; available data actually suggests that the cull will bring no disease benefit at all. This independent report was disregarded by both Natural England and the Godfray review, apparently because it showed an image of a process involved in badger culling, which illustrated the content of the report: a picture of a badger in a cage trap about to be shot (see below).

So the only detailed technical report by non-vested scientists was discounted because it showed a picture of the methodology being employed. This decision lacks impartiality, but it is consistent with the biased and selective use of science throughout the various government justifications provided for culling. Let’s not forget, Natural England were found in breach of their statutory duty in the High Court (2018) (see more here) for trying to hide the need to protect nature reserves from the potential effects of the mass removal of badgers. More recently, Natural England, most likely at Defra’s request, cynically tried to stop Wild Justice and Badger Trust taking a legal case against culling by asking the court to require them to pay more adverse costs if they lost. The court rightly told them they had no case and to go away. Such actions are a well known government tactic to cause delay, frustrate environmental justice and run up costs.

Basically, with Low Risk Area badger killing, cattle herds in LRA so-called ‘hotspots’ are blasted with extra cattle tests and movement controls to reduce TB, so the number of breakdowns starts to go down. Then, once bTB is going down, they move in to try to kill all the badgers and then to declare culling has worked, even though breakdown incidents continue at a similar rate.

It’s a travesty. Professor Charles Godfray’s review panel recently reported to Defra, calling it a ‘proof of principle’, when there is no proof of anything. Low Risk Area culling has been a failure:

  • Failure because APHA give farms within 3 km of breakdown farms a full 30 days to  move (get rid of) suspect stock before they are tested and/or restricted. Guaranteed to spread disease.
  • Failure because the core evidence behind badger culling policy 2013- 2025 is now redundant and riddled with statistical error.
  • Failure because data shows cattle gave strain 17z from Northern Ireland to Cumbria stock and then Cumbrian badgers, but there was never any evidence of badgers spreading it other than pure government speculation.
  • Failure because APHA tell Cumbrian vets to blame badgers if they are seen on a farm and not because cattle have been brought in from herds with a breakdown in the previous five years.
  • Failure because in Lincolnshire Area 54 there have only been a few breakdowns, yet over 500 badgers have been shot.
  • Failure because Natural England have kept making LRA cull areas bigger, so more and more badgers can be killed.
  • Failure because Godfray too ignored the evidence in front of him, to back up Low Risk Area culling for Defra.

Bovine TB control in Cumbria is failing

Last year saw a record number of TB breakdowns in the County of Cumbria with  a massive 39 breakdowns recorded for 2024

Area 32 – the first LRA cull in 2018 in Cumbria

Over 1000 badgers were killed between 2018 and 2021 in Area 32. During 2024 there was one B6-23 (strain 17z) breakdown (of NI origin) in northwest Cumbria. The B6-23 breakdown in 2022 just outside Area 32 has now been attributed by APHA to cattle movements. Cattle movements are being attributed where previously it was badgers getting the blame, but it is all ‘form-fiddling’. This saves face on making the Area 32 results look even more of a meaningless failure.

Area 73 – the new in 2024 cull area

It looks like the outdated and crumbling Animal and Plant Health Agency’s IT system (called SAM) is struggling. IbTB mapping is being updated less regularly and  has become a poorer online reference guide for disease control.  New breakdowns are being attributed to cattle movements here too, not badgers for some reason. A local shooting gang has been accused by local people of shooting cats as well as badgers and apparently wants to move to reactive culling. While behind the scenes, Labour is now apparently reported to be flagging to APHA to shut the whole thing down and not carry on for another two years as had been proposed under Daniel Zeichner’s short reign.

Area 54 – the Lincolnshire 2020-2024 cull area

Lincolnshire Area 54 Cull Area that began in 2020, and had hardly any TB breakdowns, has culled 523 badgers. Rather pathetically, they claim that the area is on track to be TB-Free in 2038 (whereas previously it had been predicted to be TB-Free by 2025); badger culling cannot be expected to contribute to this ambition in any shape or form.

2020         

139 shot

2021           

161 shot

2022              

80 shot

2023             

89 shot

2024             

54 shot

 

It is unclear if badger vaccination is being done in Lincolnshire Area 54, but in 2025 at least the shooting stopped. The end result? Many healthy badgers have been killed with nothing  to show for it. The area still has very few herds and breakdowns from the occasional unwise purchase of stock from the west.

It’s time for the wasteful, cruel and pointless Low Risk Area culls to stop for good and to acknowledge the flawed  science and evidence on which they were based.

Approaching 2,000 badgers have now been slaughtered in the Low Risk Area since 2018, due to reckless movement of high-disease risk stock, inadequate testing and negligent control rules. Labour has caried on against the public outcry. It must move to stop all badger culling in the Low Risk Area immediately and focus on the cattle measures that are known to work.

Government abandons RBCT as badger TB intervention evidence

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250,000 dead badger later……….and bovine TB is still rampant

A quick reminder of why the RBCT is so important

The Government’s English badger cull policy since 2013 has rested all but entirely on the RBCT analyses. It is the science that DEFRA has used to create policy and in court to defend their decisions to experiment with badger culling. The original RBCT conclusions claimed badger culling can reduce bovine TB cattle herd breakdowns; dozens of subsequent studies on which the policy hangs, are heavily derived from and dependent on it.

The ‘Godfray panel’ review of the science (published earlier 4th Sept. 2025) produce their own new re-analysis of the RBCT which claims to show a benefit from culling badgers, but at a much lower level of significance than previously presented – it is weak not strong. The panel then follows Defra’s shift from 2023, that the RBCT is no longer pivotal to the policy that badger interventions are necessary in the control of bovine TB. It claims that  it is ‘likely’ that other science shows that badgers are a sufficient disease risk to cattle to warrant intervention. More on this below.

Government scientists continue to infer that badger culling has caused a reduction in disease since 2013 when the badger cull policy was implemented, and in no small part  because this is what was “predicted” by the results of the RBCT. This is classic confirmation bias. So the correct interpretation of the results of the RBCT analysis remain hugely important to understanding the role of badger culling, or lack of it, in the control of bovine TB. Defra and now Godfray’s attempt to unlink it are strange, suspicious and somewhat unconvincing.

Below is a chronology of some key RBCT publications.

16th February 2006, “Positive and negative effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was published in Nature by Donnelly et al.

10th May 2019, “Badger Culling and Bovine TB in Cattle: A Re Evaluation of Proactive Culling Benefit in the Randomized Badger Culling Trial” was published in the Journal of Dairy and Veterinary Sciences by Tom Langton.

13th December 2022, First version of “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was posted as a preprint on Research Square by Torgerson et al..

15th July 2024. “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was published in Nature Scientific Reports by Torgerson et al.

21st August 2024. “An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) I: Within proactive culling areas”  and “An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial II: In neighbouring areas” were published in Royal Society Open Science by Mills et al..

16th September 2024. A ‘Comment’ response to the new Mills et al. 2024 papers was submitted to the Royal Society Open Science: “Randomised Badger Culling Trial lacks evidence for proactive badger culling effect on tuberculosis in cattle: comment on Mills et al. 2024, Parts I & II” by Torgerson et al.. This was pre-printed with bioRxiv on 20th September.

11th June 2025, ‘Comment’ response to the two new Mills et al. (2024) to the Royal Society Open Science was published: Randomised Badger Culling Trial—no effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle: comment on Mills, Woodroffe and Donnelly (2024a, 2024b),  by Paul Torgerson et al. (2025), was published by the Royal Society Open Science.

4th September 2025, Bovine TB strategy review update, Professor Sir Charles Godfray CBE FRS (Chair),Professor Glyn Hewinson CBE FLSW, Professor Sir Bernard Silverman FRS, Professor Michael Winter OBE, Professor James Wood OBE. This review contains  a new RBCT analysis by Bernard Silverman.

15th September 2025. “The Randomised Badger Culling Trial (1998-2005); proactive badger culling analyses were not weak, but invalid.” New pre-print by Professor Paul Torgerson. Version 2 posted 29th October 2025.

Natural England’s selective use of published and pre-printed work

Natural England’s rationale for licensing the supplementary badger culls in 2025 did not take the Torgerson et al 2024 preprint into consideration. This is despite considering un-peer reviewed reports, and preprints (notably Mills et al 2024) last year.

Their rationale for licensing the intensive culls in 2025 took into account a draft of the new Godfray review analysis, immediately favouring it over Torgerson et al 2024 and Torgerson et al 2025, (see more here). Notably they also took into account the new APHA (Robertson) pre-print which attempts to claim that Langton et al 2022 is ‘unlikely’ to have found an effect of culling, should one have existed.

Basic flaws and statistical problems with the new Godfray review

Complex statistics is difficult for the non-specialist to understand, and difficult to explain to other non-specialists. But it is important to convey the extent and gravity of the problems with this new Godfray/Silverman analysis. Here goes…….

  • Silverman has coded 4 binomial regression logit link models of the RBCT data.
  • He says that he has compared the results of the 4 models using AICc information criteria.
  • However, the output figures reported were for Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC), not AICc as they were labelled. This was corrected with an erratum on 16th September, with a claim that “the rest of the analysis and interpretation is unaffected”. This is not the case.
  • When the correct AICc figures are used, the values for models 3 & 4 (with & without badger culling) are all but the same – there is no real difference.
  • Further, as the Godfray group used a quasibinomial model for inference, it would be best practice to use QAICc selection criteria. Using this method, it is the model that does not include culling that has the best co-variate. I.e. culling has no effect.

In addition to the problems with the AICc/QUAICc model selection criteria, Silverman has not correctly adjusted for time at risk (exposure to disease) in his models. Time at risk varied from 2.72 to 6.73 years between areas studied, so this difference needs to be included in their models.  As Silverman has used binomial regression, to do this adjustment correctly, you need to have the complementary log-log function in the link (rather than the standard logit link that he used). When this is done, there is no effect of culling.

Silverman has also not dealt with the over-fitting issues of his models, something that was a feature of the Donnelly et al 2006 model. He has chosen to code the model to predict the time at risk, but the method for this creates a high number of variables relative to the number of data points, resulting in over-fitting of data, poor residuals and poor predictive power. In other words, he is using models that are not the most appropriate for the trial and data. Torgerson et al (2024 and 2025) show that the most appropriate models with the best model rating criteria show no effect of culling.

As Professor Mark Brewer pointed out in his review for the Royal Society of Torgerson et al 2025, ”work should be verifiable.” That is, if there really was a significant effect from badger culling in the data from the RBCT, it should be apparent in far more than one specially selected model and specially selected information criteria; it should be possible to verify it with a range of analyses.

As Professor Brewer also pointed out, “..in such a contentious area as this, it is naïve to imagine that a single analysis by a particular group of scientists should be seen as sufficient.” But that is essentially what has happened again; one group of scientists from Oxford University has been allowed to defend their legacy publications, and exclude scientific views that disagree with their own.

What science is left to support badger culling without the RBCT

Godfray refers to the 2024 Birch et al paper, incorrectly suggesting that it compared culled and unculled areas. In reality it was just a time series of data. The reduction in disease over the period of the cull cannot be attributed to badger culling. All disease measures implemented, including the introduction of extensive testing were analysed together with no control. There was no comparison of culled and unculled areas. In fact, the concurrent increase in SICCT testing and introduction of Gamma testing over the period of culling is greatly understated in Birch. See letter in Vet Record for more on this.

The Godfray report quotes two genomics papers to support the role of badgers in the transmission of bTB to cattle. There have been a number of genomic papers published in recent years on this issue, and they reach a range of conclusions. These papers are not definitive. They rely heavily on selective modelling, and many rely on the RBCT for data or inference. They are not evidence of significant disease risk from badgers, or that badger interventions would significantly reduce any disease risk.

Many other prominent scientific papers which have previously been used as evidence for badger culling have been invalidated by Torgerson et al 2024 and 2025 and now even by by the incorrect Godfray panel’s massive demotion of the statistical effect. Done properly the review should have gone back to its 2018 text and corrected it, to remove findings based on these now invalid studies.

The panel have relied on publications which have used flawed methods of analysis. It is important that these papers are now corrected, retracted or marked with expressions of concern in order that further work and funding is not mis-directed.

Most importantly of all, badger interventions designed at reducing TB in cattle must be stopped immediately. They remain wasteful, inhumane and indefensible.