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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 With the new findings to be read alongside the earlier review, despite much of the 2018 material being superfluous or out of date.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.

Further evidence against the culling of healthy badgers

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A letter published last week in Vet Record (4/11 October) highlights further evidence against the culling of healthy badgers. The letter by Professor Paul Torgerson focuses on the recent scientific take-down of the supposed bovine TB ‘benefit’ from badger culling reported from the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT). He describes the subsequent attempt to rescue the purported positive effect of badger culling in the recently released “Bovine TB strategy review update” Godfray review. A new preprint (here) outlines the errors in the new statistical models produced. Professor Torgerson concludes that “Had the (original) analysis been done correctly in 2006 then it is almost certain there would have been no badger culling since 2013”.

Godfray BTB review update 2025: a failure to deliver.

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The Godfray review panel

In December 2024, rather than have an independent review, Defra re-appointed some of its familiar advisors to update their 2018 Bovine TB Strategy Review.  To consider “new evidence or analysis” published since 2018 that affects the recommendations made seven years ago.  The reported aim was to assist work on a new bovine TB (bTB) strategy for England for the spring of 2026. The DEFRA panel was mandated to:

  • review evidence and analysis published since 2018
  • look for improvements on BTB interventions set out in their 2018 Review
  • advise on gaps in the available evidence and disease control tools.

The authors were charged with producing these outputs as three chapters. But the result looks more like an effort to refresh old beliefs and hopes, aiming to keep the little acted-upon 2018 document afloat. The new report says it should be read alongside the 2018 review, but that is hard, with what is now overlapping groups of ideas across two documents. No one seems to have asked if the 2018 review was actually worth building upon or if perhaps ordering it in a more effective way was in order, so as to better the 2018 review.

In the report, the authors have looked selectively at the science, but not discussed its merits in any depth. Instead they have used their preferred  thoughts and policy suggestions, and much ‘hunch’ opinion comes through. And rather than accept peer-reviewed published science on the RBCT that they don’t like, they have done some of their own analyses – as posted earlier (here). These analyses are selective and lack scientific rigour. They then finesse the muddle by saying any demise of the RBCT  does not really matter anyway. So why did they go to all the effort of the unsuccessful rescue effort then? 

The overall impression is of a report trying to help Defra to ‘carry on regardless’, with failing measures and with a few changes here and there, rather than looking forward with clear fresh direction and determination, as the exercise required. After all, the 2018 recommendations were largely, either rejected, not adopted, adopted in part or merely paid lip service to. The result has been a failure to reach the 2025 mid-point policy targets. 

The fact that Daniel Zeichner (now fired and  replaced as Minister of State by Angela Eagle, after only a little over a year), reappointed largely the same conflicted group of individuals from 2018, may relate to him coming into the job with the wrong briefing on bovine TB.

Zeichner failed to recognize, and act on considerable issues within his struggling bTB department. A department  too embedded in the wrong moves, he was too slow to realise. Zeichner and DEFRA simply chose to dismiss early concerns over lack of impartiality in the Godfray re-appointments. A 50,000 strong petition calling for scrutiny of Oxford’s statistics, a six thousand strong petition and public demonstrations in Oxford about the lack of independence of panel members, some of whom held multiple conflicts of interest, made no difference to the Defra back-room advising the Minister. Academics most conflated in the scientific controversies at Oxford and Cambridge Universities would be ‘marking their own homework’ for Defra again, at taxpayer expense. 

Labour’s incoming policy emphasis last July was all about moving away from badger culling. But it did not let go of the Defra obsession to focus so highly on badgers, as their unproven significant vector.  This suggests that the usual suspects within DEFRA and APHA, by now captured and tribalised by industry interests saw that their best strategy was to play for time. It seems that their aim was to slow down policy change to phase out culling. They were perhaps keen not to risk the truth being made public, which might enable the NFU to reclaim huge costs spent on  killing badgers to no effect. Perhaps to play a waiting game in order to bring culling back in a few years time to satisfy strong industry beliefs, spawned by bad (Godfray) science. It is, after all, the measure that Defra has long ‘hung it hat’ on, as the key tool in its mythical tool box. The measure that Boris Johnson as Prime Minister took away from George Eustice back in 2020. The measure that originates largely from Oxford University getting the science wrong, time and time again. And now getting it wrong once more.

This outcome has been on the cards since Defra announced they had made the Godfray panel appointments earlier this year (see here). The panel included Professors Charles Godfray and Bernard Silverman from the University of Oxford, and Professor James Wood University of Cambridge. Godfray and Wood had major roles in supporting badger culling for Defra, and were unlikely to change their rewarded positions on the issue. Also on the panel was Professor Glyn Hewinson, who has spent a professional lifetime (now at Aberystwyth University) working to try to seek new testing methods, and Professor Michael Winter of the University of Exeter. Professor Christl Donnelly was recused from the panel, with prior concerns raised over RBCT badger cull policy statistics.   

The update report looks like it has been collated by Defra staff with major input from James Wood, with excessive detail on worries about cattle vaccination. With Bernard Silverman looking at Badger cull statistics. Use of a mix of numbers and roman numerals for paragraphs looks a bit clunky.

The report suggests that there is a ‘small chance’ of being TB-Free by 2038. Saying that it is ‘challenging but achievable’ is not so much a stretch as an impossibility, and Defra have confirmed they have no position on when TB Freedom will occur. 

Here the departure from reality looks a bit desperate, it shows a detachment from any  understanding of where the epidemic control crisis is truly positioned. Farmer representatives cannot possibly look at this document with anything other than grave concern and scepticism.

This ‘small chance’ of TB-Freedom in 2038, must be maddening to those at the ‘coal face’ who know that the disease control policy is failing and poor scientific advice is the major driver.  And it is not due to a lack of investment, but how finances have been managed that is at fault. The self-praise that TB Hub is ‘very good’ is revealing. It has long been a mouthpiece for dubious ideas and advice. 

Chapter 3: Surveillance and diagnostics in cattle.

After the introduction and background, the first topic chapter recognizes some of the more obvious and burgeoning issues with the current approaches that were underplayed in the 2018 review and are already published for anyone caring to look:

  • Mother to calf infections are important
  • That TB-Free status awarded on release from breakdown is often false, undisclosed residual infection is rife, and is driving the epidemic in cattle (and wildlife)
  • The low sensitivity of the SICCT test means it should be replaced with the SICT test, the test used successfully in other countries
  • Better testing will significantly contract the cattle industry due to the volume of infected animals that have been generated by the failed system since 2001
  • Ways to safely quarantine infected cattle for slaughter to prevent spread both to other cattle and wildlife and avoid industry contraction have not been determined
  • Data sharing is incoherent, despite £183 Million being spent to-date

Yet there is a nod to the work by Robert Reed and Dick Sibley and others at Gatcombe Farm in Devon, and elsewhere, as expounded in the ‘Brian May’ BBC Panorama documentary of 2024. The need to be able to use alternative tests is recognized, as is the use of tests without compulsory slaughter of reactors. This  opens the way for a more nuanced system. These avenues are mentioned but lost in a list of many other things without weighting or priority. The system to implement such measures is another story and could have been mapped out. Defra is stuck in ‘can’t afford it’ mode, but a report like this won’t help them.

The media headline announcement of the review update on 4th September was a warning that Covid-style control funding is needed – so perhaps a few hundred £Mn or £Bn per year? How likely is this in the current economic climate? How much is really needed and for what? Where is the cost-benefit analysis or doesn’t it look too good? Will the government simply look to pass on the problem to the next administration, as previous ones have done, or look to sort out the long running disaster? Other neglected animal health crises suggest ‘wait and see’ is the present strategy, so the reports vagaries might not have bothered Defra too much.

Chapter 4: The Disease in Cattle

Reading through all the uncertainties and caveats in this section, the reader is led to the conclusion that bTB cattle vaccination is unlikely work any better than it is working now any time soon, and that it might be undeliverable at scale. Some of the claims are un-evidenced and a DIVA test that works is the unconvincing ‘maybe’ of old. This could almost be interpreted as a recommendation to drop the whole thing and let those involved slip away, rather than invest yet more shiploads of funding. It is hard to see any excellence in this direction. 

Chapter 5: Cattle movements and Risk-based trading

Obviously linked to diagnostics, the general lack of cattle movement control monitoring and poor biosecurity offers bleak prospects. The problems are well known, but little is being done to improve them. Suggesting that only 25% of Low Risk Area infections are due to cattle movements implies continued denial and/or incompetence. The update fails to identify a credible and rapid way forward to stop what the EU call ‘the British national sport of moving cows around’. The links between biosecurity, risk-based trading, slaughter compensation and a potential insurance approach are further covered in Chapter 8. But until the basic elements of disease control are sorted out (moving diseased cattle infects the herds they are moved to), and the truth separated from the fiction, it is hard to see who is going to believe in, support and enforce any such extensive controls.

Chapter 6: The Disease in Wildlife

Here the authors are writing to defend a failing battle to promote badger interventions. Charles Godfray and James Wood are two of the academics who have pushed them as effective. Godfray via the original Randomised Badger Culling Trial RBCT experiment where he was a DEFRA audit contractor, and Wood being the post 2013 media cheerleader for culling “working” generally, and attacking those questioning biased government propaganda. Predictably they recommend that badger interventions are still necessary to control bTB in cattle. 

With Bernard Silverman replacing Christl Donnelly (both at Oxford University Statistics), the face-off between the Paul Torgerson and Donnelly camps over the RBCT analyses that has played out recently in the Royal Society Open Science journal comes to the fore (see here). The review finds in favour of Torgerson on statistical use of rate/count in the ‘battle of the models’, but Silverman has gone beyond his remit to review, and has actually done his own analysis, with code published as Annex 4. He attempts to ‘rescue’ the RBCT, albeit with low statistical significance.  However, having diminished the holy-grail RBCT study significance from strong to weak, he has used the wrong output data for his result. When his published model is followed properly, badger culling is shown to have no effect, (see pre-print here). Thus the Godfray report fully invalidates the RBCT – this may take a few weeks to sink in across academia. And of course with the Donnelly 2006 analysis relegated, the plethora of papers that reply on it and/or use the same analytical method fall with it. And there are a lot of them.

Silvermans substantial oversight unravels the arguments made in the rest of the chapter to try to justify the badger interventions since 2013. It is embarrassing for the authors to try to bury their past positions on this issue, and this is the reason so many people said they were unsuitable to undertake the review update. This surely cannot be lost on Defra who put them there. It undermines the whole report.

What else did they get wrong? Well for a start, the pre-printing of the ‘Robertson’ analysis (currently un-reviewed). This work was, one suspects, commissioned by Defra officials to try to discredit (see here and here) the 2022 study showing badger culling to be ineffective. Robertson was seconded to Natural England from APHA for some months to undertake the work. Badger Crowd understands that Godfray suggested that it be pre-printed to back up his unwavering view that badger culling has “worked”. This analysis using unqualified guesswork and simulated data has not moved on since it was shared by Natural England back in 2023. Requests for the code used in the work have been ignored. Badger Crowd understands that it has not been submitted to a journal, and it is not difficult to see why. More on this red herring will be revealed shortly.

Perhaps the largest deception of all is that the Godfray review update attempts to characterise the badger issue as one where key decisions are political not scientific, with progress hampered by unmovable positions by those with extreme views. This is a gross simplification. Hard-core protagonists or deniers have little or no hands-on involvement or power. It is the scientists who have got it wrong, and blaming politicians has come from overconfidence, and an apparent need now to blame others for a mess of their own creation, over nearly three decades.

This smokescreen report is an unsuccessful effort to excuse poor progress and to hide the academic mistakes on this issue over the last 25 years. Godfray and his Oxford colleagues are themselves implicated. The flaws and deceptions have the potential to damage Oxford University and Defra very badly, as Zeichner was warned in the spring. They will damage Labour as well, on whose watch the errors were constructed.  If they don’t recognize the scale of the problems immediately and involve a broader team of visibly independent scientists, nothing can change. What is needed is an independent inquiry along the lines recommended by Professor Mark Brewer, head of Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland, in June of this year. Unless that happens, the British cattle and dairy industries are doomed to years, if not decades, of more failure with taxpayers footing the growing bill. £Billions more wasted, decades of cruelty and misery for animals and farmers.

Trying to use genomics arguments to sustain badger interventions as a last ditch effort is fanciful, but that is the route that  Defra have taken. They may be preparing to use trap-side testing in the predictable back-route preparation for Test Vaccinate Remove (TVR). It is an effort to replay the very old record to ‘blame the badgers’ to ‘keep the farmers happy’. Who was it who first named the policy ‘lies, deceit and negligence?’ Surely this time the farmers are wiser?

In short, the Godfray reviews in 2018 and 2025 have simply failed to deliver when it comes to setting the scene for resolving the bovine TB crisis in England. Defra is set on a path that was presumably decided with the NFU once Labour took targeted culling away last August. There is practically no chance that central government will fund a Covid-style response to bTB when the science as presented is so incoherent. Maybe confusion and no change is the plan? There is important work to be done to get bovineTB under control, but there is no sound evidenced route to a TB free England in this review. Bring on an independent Inquiry.

Cattle testing with Gamma interferon

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On 19th August, Defra sent an email to ‘stakeholders’ announcing that as part of the work to refresh the bTB strategy, it will be “enhancing test sensitivity in cattle herds”. This is “to help identify infected cattle which may not have been detected by the skin test.” This news doesn’t seem to have been reported very widely, but has been covered by South West Farmer.

Defra say:

“At present, mandatory interferon-gamma (‘gamma’) blood testing applies to certain TB breakdown herds in the High Risk Area (HRA) and six-monthly surveillance testing parts of the Edge Area of England.  We are working to extend gamma testing to all herds experiencing a new breakdown with Officially Tuberculosis Free Withdrawn (OTFW) status in the HRA and six-monthly parts of the Edge Area. ”

“Therefore, farmers with eligible herds in these areas will be able to apply to APHA from 01 September 2025 for government-funded gamma testing as a voluntary option. All cattle with a positive gamma test result will be removed and usual valuation and compensation procedures will apply.”

“Using the skin and gamma tests together is proven to increase test sensitivity, particularly in herds where Bovine Tuberculosis has already been identified.  This means infected animals can be detected and removed from the herd earlier, reducing the spread of the disease within the affected herd and the risk of future breakdowns after the herd has regained its Officially TB Free (OTF) status.”      

This change is a voluntary one. If you don’t want to know whether your cattle have bTB using Gamma, you’re not obliged to find out. While the option for extra testing is welcome, it raises some interesting questions.

Strange Timing?

Government’s updated bTB control strategy is scheduled for spring 2026. It is to take its lead from a  ‘Godfray Group’  review of new science published since the 2018 review, and this new review is expected shortly.

So why the urgency to push Gamma now?  Could it be that APHA’s ‘Year End Descriptive Epidemiology Reports’ show that their long-term objective of reducing OTF-W (Officially TB Free Withdrawn) incidence to less than 1% has absolutely no hope of success & they really can’t afford to delay any longer?

Might Godfray have decided that OTF-S (Officially TB Free Suspended) is in reality a sufficiently accurate measure of new infection (see explainer), and the implication of this is that any fall in bTB has been modest and is levelling off to reflect the inadequate capacity of the flawed current approaches. Could the very high profile bTB breakdown at Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm have had some influence in this decision? (See Farmers Weekly take on this). Clarkson did say he would be speaking to officials at Defra…. It appears, incidentally, that he has bought from herds that have been in breakdown over the last five years or so.

It was use of Gamma that has reduced bTB since 2013

APHA’s scientific paper analysing the results of the Badger Culling Policy (BCP) (Birch et al 2024) claimed a 56% bTB reduction benefit over the period of badger culling. What it failed to articulate with clarity was that BCP  was really a mixture of culling, increased frequency SICCT cattle testing and the introduction of Gamma testing in badger cull areas, and much earlier than indicated in that report.

Mis-describing the extent and timing of use of Gamma, that paper implied, with muddled wording, that badger culling was responsible for the disease benefit measured. The reality is that declines in bTB most closely mirror the introduction of enhanced cattle measures. Analysis of competing models in Langton et al 2022 suggested that the best random effects model was the one without badger culling as a co-variate; all the random effects models which included ‘cull’ failed to identify an effect of culling. Perhaps this is beginning to sink in at Defra.

What about the other cattle tests?

Anybody who has watched the BBC’s “Brian May: the Badgers, the farmers and me” will know that extensive efforts using a suite of cattle tests have been trialed for 10 years by vet Dick Sibley at Gatcome Farm in Devon. Working around Defra’s strict and problematic rules about the use of cattle testing, this groundbreaking work has shown not only how different tests can be used to identify the disease at different times in the life of cattle, but also how to use such a process to effectively manage infected animals to minimize spread. Where then, is the plan to utilize the full range of cattle tests that could be used to drive down disease?

So, is the new introduction of optional Gamma testing a token response to the clear failure of badger culling and recognition of a need for change?  Alone, it will simply find more disease, delay OTF declaration and drive up OTF-S and OTF-W figures.  An increase that misguided commentators will then no doubt claim is ‘due to badger culling being stopped’.

It’s too little too late; whether or not Defra attempt to cling to the flawed RBCT publications and  badger blame game is about to be revealed. Their problem is that they surely won’t want to admit they wasted  £100’s of millions and killed 250,000 badgers for nothing, so they may well be reluctant to accept what has become obvious to the world of science and statistics; badgers have not been shown to be a significant factor in the control of bovine TB in cattle herds.

England’s bovine TB control

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The world watches and wonders……..

The interest and outrage generated by the English badger culls over the last thirteen years is huge and continues to grow. But as time has gone on, the problems have also attracted a growing international following. Bovine TB is, after all, an international problem. Since 2019, there have been multiple readers from 96 countries and dependencies:

 

 

 

 

 

 



Austria, Algeria, American Samoa, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bermuda, Brazil, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guernsey, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Spain, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vietnam, Venezuela and Zambia.

How do  other countries view the disastrous situation the UK has got itself into? Do they also have government departments committed to upholding out of date analyses and opinions at the expense of adopting newer and better disease control protocols? They must surely be baffled by the obvious reluctance of the decision makers in London to engage with scientists who offer real hope for progress in the disease control process, with potential benefits that are readily apparent. The refusal of government to involve published scientists who have called out errors and oversights must be perplexing, as must the refusal to place any value on the lives and welfare of badgers as part of the wildlife wealth of the UK. The latter remains an unexplained moral and ethical black hole. This is a major international embarrassment for the UK in front of an academic and veterinary world audience.

We hope that despite England’s ongoing intransigence on this distressing issue over decades, our reporting of the science of bovine TB in recent years  is helping to inform other countries who need to know the limitations of the tuberculin and gamma tests, as they are used in UK and Ireland. They need to know, where whole herd depopulation is not an option, how a new protocol to remove the disease from a herd is what is needed;  a wider range of cattle tests used more frequently and according to need is vital.

In the UK, it is now clear that badgers have not been shown to play a significant role in the persistence of bTB in cattle herds. While more research is needed into this disease in all manner of wildlife, its respiratory nature suggests that the source of new infection in cattle is overwhelmingly other cattle; the necessary close contact between cattle and deer/badgers/fox etc just doesn’t happen in normal circumstances. Cattle that are carrying bTB, however, are able to remain undetected for many years by DEFRA’s tests of choice, the SICCT and Gamma tests. And infected cows get traded and moved, and take their infection to a new area and new animals. Only when this is better understood and accepted will vets and farmers  be able to sustainably manage livestock in rural areas without disrupting ecosystems nearby that are vulnerable to careless exploitation.

 

Summer news roundup

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The  parliamentary summer recess has begun. There can be no more Parliamentary Questions until the recall in September. Which is more than a shame, because there are questions that still need to be answered about the badger cull and bovine TB policy, by a government that does not engage properly with many stakeholders and the public. Supplementary badger cull (SBC) and Low Risk Area licenses were issued in May, and badger shooting is underway, with more authorisations expected for intensive culling shortly. These last intensive cull licenses will almost certainly be issued later this month to allow even more culling in the autumn. But the science to support this policy has been successfully challenged in the literature, with independent verification and a call for proper investigation – yet we still have silence from a government that just wants to finish its ugly killing spree.

Zeichner visit to Gatcombe Farm

The Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs Daniel Zeichner visited Gatcombe Farm in Devon a few weeks ago. This is the farm at the centre of the ground breaking Save Me Trust BBC documentary last year that was attacked by some of the nastier elements of the bTB world, including Defra-funded bodies. Gatcombe is where an innovative protocol for cattle testing has been investigated over the last ten years or so, using carefully managed, newer and more sensitive tests. Each test can be used to target bTB to better increase chance of detection. Used in combination, in a manner prohibited for general use by current rules, the new protocol has been successful in identifying infection that would previously be left hidden in the herd. Let’s hope Zeichner sees the potential to finally start on changes to policy that were needed many years ago, using the cattle measures that DEFRA staff have fought so hard to resist.

Godfray Review report postponed

The current review of bovine TB science, the first one published back in 2018, was commissioned by the new Labour government last year and was due to report by the end of June. But in June, this was officially changed to ‘from the end of June’. Badger Crowd understands that it will now appear towards the end of the year, but an exact time has not been announced. This could, perhaps, be partly due to the publication on June 11th of a paper in Royal Society Open Science that confirmed that previous core Government reference science, the RBCT, was in fact based on ‘a basic statistical oversight’, and that more  plausible analyses of the results showed no effect of badger culling from the £50 Million experiment.

APHA produces a pre-print to oppose the 2022 appraisal finding no cull benefits

A pre-print has appeared on BioRxiv: ‘Evaluating the effect of badger culling on TB incidence in cattle: a critique of Langton et al. 2022’ authored by DEFRA’s Andy Robertson. Robertson has worked for TBHub, APHA, Natural England and is based at DEFRA. His publications have twice wrongly claimed badgers are a known maintenance host for cattle TB.

The new pre-print, three years in the preparation, claims that if badger culling had ‘worked’, (created disease decline benefit), the Langton et al analysis might not have detected it. As ever with DEFRA bTB publications, computer code for the model and simulations used is not provided, so it is impossible to check that what has been done is correct or plausible. Code was requested from DEFRA on July 21, but there has been no response at all.

Much of the text leans heavily on published studies that have now been shown to be uncertain at best. The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) paper (Birch et al., published March 2024) in particular is misrepresented as evidence of a positive effect of badger culling. Accurate interpretation of that paper shows that there was no attempt in it to see if badger culling contributed to the general decline in bTB in herds under progressively tighter cattle testing methods. The critique glosses-over an important finding in Langton et al. 2022 (that Defra acknowledged at the time), that at the county level, bovine TB incidence stabilised, and started to decline, well before badger culling was rolled out.

Badger Vaccination

The governments new agreement to fund the NFU  £1.4 Mn badger vaccination trials in Cornwall has been widely reported since January. It has been in the news again recently, yet there are still scant details available on the scientific and analytical protocol of the work. Aspects follows a similar project in Wales many years ago, that led to it being dropped as a strategic option.

Requests for further information from DEFRA have met the usual wall of silence. DEFRA’s Minister Sue Hayman half-answered a PQ on the project last week 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 the use of badger vaccination as a tool in cattle TB control is not being measured? This despite NFU saying that is the essential question that needs answering. It all looks so half-baked and ‘un-joined up’ at DEFRA.

Jeremy Clarkson’s herd is OTF-S

As reported here, it was bad news for Jeremy Clarkson recently. Positive and inconclusive tuberculin tests on his cattle mean that Diddly Squat Farm now has the status Officially TB Free-Suspended. With viewing figures of 4-5 million, Clarkson is in a good position to put the disastrous government bovine TB policy into the public consciousness. Costing over £100Mn a year, the result of the policy has been an immense waste of time and resources. With a hidden epidemic that is still not being effectively detected, and 250,000 mostly healthy badgers culled, many cruelly, due to ‘statistical oversights’ and a government mired in its inability to get a proper grip. If Ministers want to do farming a huge favour, they will get the right experts to look at the evidence, and having procrastinated for over a year, instigate immediate radical change. Forget badgers, it is correct cattle testing and movement control  procedures that will rapidly bring herds into manageable condition, as it did in the 1960’s.

Will anything new be offered before the intensive badger culling starts again in September? Probably not. The lack of urgency on this issue is incredibly disappointing. Whatever Labour’s manifesto intentions were, it seems that the civil servants have the whip hand here, holding on to their dogma and their wrong advice and roles, resisting rather than following the new science. It is the public purse, the farmers, cows and badgers who are paying the price of ineffective government.

The Cornwall badger vaccination project – why the secrecy and confusion?

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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.”

The reply from Sue Hayman was as follows:

“Work has started on a comprehensive new bovine TB strategy for England, to continue to drive down disease rates to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods and end the badger cull by the end of this Parliament.
The evidence surrounding bovine TB control, including recent studies such as the paper by Torgerson, is being independently reviewed by a panel of experts led by Professor Sir Charles Godfray, which the Government has reconvened.
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. The project is being delivered by the NFU in partnership with the Zoological Society of London, who have a track record of publishing peer-reviewed research on the subject of badger vaccination. The project will continue to be regularly reviewed by Defra as it progresses.”


The following day July 31st, an article appeared in The Guardian newspaper entitled “Farmers and scientists join forces in Cornwall to vaccinate badgers against TB”. The article quotes one of the researchers involved  as saying:

“By working together to compare different approaches, we can develop a shared understanding of the evidence and use it to identify TB control solutions which are effective and sustainable.”

And it quotes a farmer as saying:

“What we hope to ultimately get out of [the project] is whether [badger vaccination] affects the cattle levels of TB – that remains to be seen, but I think it’s well worth doing.”

So Sue Hayman is telling us that “the Cornwall Badger Project is focused on testing different methods of delivering badger vaccination, rather than evaluating the impact on bovine TB in cattle”. Meanwhile, the researcher and farmer participant infer that the results will give an insight into the control of bovine TB in cattle because it seems they think or have been told that disease benefit in cattle is ‘likely’?  This approach is highly questionable. The Government statement implies that three or four years down the road, we will still have no evidence of whether badger vaccination effects TB in cattle one jot.

Importantly, the PQ asked if any analytical  protocol for the research and subsequent analysis would be published before the work starts to avoid a repeat of the problems of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) (see here). But this was not answered.

The Guardian article states:

“The project will assess three vaccination approaches to determine which works best: annual vaccination over four years, vaccination every other year or reactive vaccination based on TB infection on farms.”

But this is a three year project? Is ‘working best’ just a reference to a rough idea of TB prevalence change in badgers using a difficult test ?

The NFU said previously in their January project announcement and in defiance of Government policy: 

“The NFU is clear that badger vaccination cannot be used as a direct alternative to culling and evidence is needed to give the NFU and wider farming industry the confidence that badger vaccination has any effect in reducing bTB in cattle, before proving its ability for delivery at the necessary scale, cost-effectively.” 

So in summary, NFU are being given around £1.3 MN to see if farmers in some apparently badger-friendly areas of Cornwall can vaccinate badgers with a bit of training, and Sue Hayman says, quite rightly, that it will shed no light on whether vaccination is of any value in controlling bTB in cattle. In contradiction, the researcher quoted suggests the work will identify TB control solutions which are effective and sustainable. So why, in the midst of an expensive damaging disease crisis are the NFU being set up to spend public money on something that cannot deliver their stated needs? Do ordinary farmers in Cornwall know this? – apparently not according to what those involved are saying.  

In any case the public, or at least independent specialists, should have access to the project design and the analytical protocol before work starts, whatever it is actually doing. For example if there are three treatment areas, will there be treatment ‘control’ areas and what proportion of badgers will be vaccinated, and what are the expected sample sizes?

Of course since the publication of Torgerson et al. papers (2024 & 2025), there is no sound scientific basis to continue with any badger culling or vaccination for bTB control. The RBCT did not show any benefit from badger culling, so any benefit from badger vaccination is unlikely. Cattle measures alone on the other hand, are proven to be effective. Are public funds being frittered again at a time when decisive action to protect badgers, cows and farmers remains long overdue and overlooked?

Vet Times reports on new Torgerson analysis

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A new article in Vet Times reports on the Torgerson et al (2025) paper published in Royal Society Open Science last month, that has prompted calls to stop all badger culling immediately. The badger culling policy has, it says, relied on a ‘basic statistical oversight’.

The article picks up on comments by the new paper’s reviewer, Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland director Mark Brewer, who argued that “in such a contentious area as this, it is naive to imagine that a single analysis by a particular group of scientists should be seen as sufficient”.

In a noticeable first and potential change of direction, the article quotes Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss as saying that Defra is “really looking to protect our key species through vaccination and progress that with badgers, as a key wildlife species, but cattle as well.”

You can read the article here.