Tag Archives: badger culling

Badger Culling – where we are now

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In August 2024, Defra announced plans for a ‘refreshed’ bovine TB control badger strategy (here). On 30th January 2025, Defra issued Terms of Reference (here) for their ‘comprehensive new bovine TB review’, a look at ‘new’ science, which will  inform their ‘refreshed’ strategy. This included details of the scientific panel which will be reviewing ‘new’ evidence that has become available since the last review was published in 2018. We have blogged briefly about this here. A new strategy would be the first since that presented in 2014, by Owen Paterson when he was Secretary of State (here). At that time, Patterson said:

“If we do not get on top of the disease we will see a continued increase in the number of herds affected, further geographical spread and a taxpayer bill over the next decade exceeding £1 billion.”

This is exactly what has happened, and what Steve Reed the new Secretary of State could be about to repeat. The outline for the preparation of a new strategy is brief:

  • First Bovine TB strategy in a decade to end badger cull and drive down TB rates to protect farmers livelihoods
  • New holistic approach will ramp up cattle control measures, wildlife monitoring and badger vaccinations
  • Proposals to be co-designed alongside farmers, vets, scientists, and conservationists to beat TB that devastates livestock farmers and wildlife

While Badger Crowd welcomes talk of an ‘end to the badger cull’, the new strategy proposals indicate that this is not guaranteed before the end of the current parliament (2029). This is completely unacceptable. The strategy proposes five more years of badger culling, all without sound scientific basis, and if implemented would result in the total number of culled badgers heading beyond 250,000, with no measurable disease benefit at all.

Holistic measures to ramp up cattle control measures are welcome, along with wildlife monitoring, but proposals for mass badger vaccination to be employed  against bovine TB in cattle are based on unscientific beliefs, uncertainty and guesswork, using methods trialed and rejected in Wales. They are a further betrayal of what was promised and what is urgently needed. They are a scientifically unjustified continuation of the badger blame game, and as misguided as culling in terms of cattle TB control.

The scientific evidence just does not support the continued focus on badgers as a 50% source of bovine TB in cattle, despite the last Government’s claims and  ill-informed media reports. There are no ‘benefits to bank’. Yes, general on-farm hygiene improvements are sensible to prevent disease generally, but the real core need is to change the SICCT gold standard regulations, giving more control to farmers and vets to use a wider range of tests. Re-education of the sector on the science of bovine TB and wildlife, over which they have been misled for many years, is urgently needed.

Who could oppose the statement that “The full strategy will be co-designed with farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists”? But this has been said before, and implemented with secret committees and closed-door briefings, usually with those who are beholden to Defra for grants and favour. It is a breeding ground for vested interests and cover-ups.

Engagement with scientists involved in important peer-reviewed science that questions badger culling (here, here and here) has been prohibited by Defra for at least five years, despite frequent requests for meetings or at least dialogue. Will there be continued resistance to accept the published science that challenges the views of those civil servants at Defra who have been pushing expensive and unethical policy for so long based on decades-old equivocal evidence?  There is an uncomfortable history of bad decision making by those who now need to move along, to allow genuine progress. 

What does the immediate future of
badger culling look like?

Intensive & supplementary culling

The Labour manifesto in 2024 called badger culling ineffective. Sadly, since Labour’s election to power, Steve Reed (SoS for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA)), Sue Hayman (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for EFRA), and Daniel Zeichner (Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs) have all confirmed that the existing badger cull licences will be ‘honoured’ as they would have been under the previous Conservative administration. But where is the honour in doing the wrong thing?  Culling will continue until January 2026. Leaked figures suggest that 10,769 mostly uninfected badger adults and cubs were killed in the 2024 supplementary, intensive and targeted culls to January 2025. How can a policy described by Labour as ineffective be implemented legally? There is no honour in retaining contracts that waste resources and distract from what really needs doing. 

Targeted culling

On 14th March 2024, under the previous Conservative administration, Defra launched a five-week consultation on the next steps to ‘evolve’ what they call ‘badger control policy’. If implemented, this would have involved ‘targeted’ culling of badgers, seemingly at the discretion of the Chief Veterinary Officer. A general election and subsequent Labour victory meant that it was lawyers acting for Defra’s Secretary of State Steve Reed (and not the Conservatives Steve Barclay) that responded to a Judicial Review Application [AC-2024-LON-002292] against the ‘future of badger culling’ Consultation, as reported here. The ‘targeted’ badger culling proposals based upon Low Risk Area ‘hotspot’ (or epidemiological culling) were scrapped, although the new Labour government was unclear about its reasons. Effectively this decision provided the legal relief that the legal case sought (i.e. no targeted culling was implemented) and so it did not proceed to a hearing. As previously mentioned, the Secretary of State Daniel Zeichner has now instigated a fresh review of future bovine TB policy. 

Low-Risk Area Culling

On the 22nd August 2024, a new consultation on licensing of a new badger cull  in the Low Risk Area appeared online. So Labour did not just re-authorise existing licences, they are started new licences in new areas, this one in Cumbria in the Eden valley north and east of Penrith. This had a 100% cull objective, repeating the failed epi-cull of the immediately  adjoining area, the subject of a report in 2023 (see here).  This cull that was demonstrably the most ineffective cull of all, because badger killing began when cattle testing had cleared all herds in the area, beyond those chronically infected. Labour have revised their public presentation to say that all culling will finish by the end of this Parliament – by 2029.

Test, Vaccinate, Remove (TVR)?

The direction of travel of a recent trickle of papers published by government scientists suggests that the new Godfray review will switch from recommending badger vaccination experiments to TVR experiments, possibly while cranking up ‘hotspot’ culling (which is targeted culling with a different name) to keep the ‘old science’ going. Will there be, as in 2013, a ghastly pilot of the new policy that would provide DEFRA with what they need to keep the NFU and others happy with continued culling?

How did we get here?

The intensive badger culls have been in progress since the policy began in 2013, bringing the official total killed to May 2025, to around 240,000.  Culled badgers have been predominantly healthy, killed on the premise of a hypothetical disease perturbation effect and supposed average 16% annual reduction in TB infections in cattle from culling, a concept designed by mostly Oxford academics that is now widely recognised as unsafe science, using unrealistic (and unexplained) extrapolation.

The February 2024 paper by Defra staff (Birch et al.) was being used to justify further culling in the March 2024 consultation, and falsely claimed that the culling programme thus far had been successful. With the Minister Steve Barclay stating “..bovine TB breakdowns in cattle are down by on average 56% after four years of culling..”. By sleight of presentation, he immediately muddles cause and effect. Authors of Birch twice acknowledge (on careful reading) that while they may speculate, the overall result cannot be attributed to badger culling: all disease measures implemented, including extensive testing, were analysed together with no control. There was no comparison of culled and unculled areas. It is far more likely to be cattle measures causing reduction in disease than badger culling, because decline began well before culling was rolled out. And in response to the introduction of annual SICCT testing in 2010 and short interval testing of infected herds. Birch et al also incorrectly under-reported the use of additional Gamma testing, which is a likely significant cause of disease decline. In truth, Birch cannot attribute benefit and provides no insight at all. Other cattle-based  measures were also introduced alongside culling. So it’s been more a case of  ‘Fake 56% News’ confirmation bias.

Writing in a preamble to Badger Trust’s report ‘Tackling Bovine TB Together’, key badger ecologist and original RBCT scientist Professor David MacDonald writes that the authors of Birch “… do not claim to have measured the consequences of badger culling, and indeed they have not”, and, “there is still no clearcut answer regarding the impact of this approach to badger culling on controlling bTB in cattle or, more broadly, whether it’s worth it.”

Badger culls have previously been justified using the guess-based ‘Risk Pathways’ approach of the Animal Plant and Health Agency (APHA) that purported to explain how disease arrives in a herd. Its ‘tick-based’ veterinary questionnaires implicated badgers as the default primary source of disease when adequate epidemiological information and investigation was lacking. Following publication of the report ‘A bovine TB policy conundrum in 2023‘ in April 2023, and with the speculative nature of their approach well exposed, APHA are now planning to use Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and a sample of dead badgers to try to justify culling on a local basis. These two methods of pinning blame on badgers fall desperately short however, as they do not prove an exact route or rate of transmission from badger to cow. Such a route may not even exist, or may be occasional or exceptional, occurring as a result of the constant infection of the countryside by infected cows. Badgers will just be getting bTB from cows, as with strain 17z in Cumbria, and rarely if ever giving it back. The proposed system for justifying badger-blame is still unscientific and unethical veterinary practice.

Why are APHA not checking back five or even ten years on moved stock to discover the improperly declared TB-Free source of new breakdowns?  It would show them the true source of infection.

Refuting peer-reviewed science showing industry-led culling has shown no disease benefit

In their March consultation, Defra are at pains to continue to refute a study in the journal Veterinary Record (18 March 2022) by Tom Langton and veterinarians Mark Jones and Iain McGill. They do this on the basis of an un-peer reviewed letter published at the same time, which used incorrect data and made incorrect assertions about the methodology used, that was later corrected with some confused and unsubstantiated remarks. So where, 2 years later, is their measured alternative? Nowhere, because they can’t produce anything, even holding all the extensive data on individual farms in secret, as they do and always have. There are many ways they could test the data, so why don’t they? Or have they tested it but don’t like the results? There was no peer-reviewed rebuttal to Langton et al. under the old Conservative leadership with Defra refusing to meet and discuss. We have blogged about this sorry tale here and here and here.

Langton et al. 2022, was done in the most logical and clear-cut way using all the data. It shows what happens as unculled areas become culled, from 2013 onwards. The paper has two main findings. The first is really good news for farmers, cows and badgers. Data suggests that the cattle-based measures implemented from 2010, and particularly the introduction of the annual tuberculin skin (SICCT) test are responsible for the slowing, levelling, peaking and decrease in bovine TB in cattle in the High Risk Area (HRA) of England during the study period, all well before badger culling was rolled out in 2016.

The second finding came from looking at the amount of cattle bTB in large areas in the High Risk Area that had undergone a badger cull, and comparing it with the amount of disease in large areas in the High Risk Areas that had not had culling. It included a six year period 2013-2019, so before and after culling was rolled out. Multiple statistical models checked the data on herd breakdowns over time and failed to find any association between badger culling and either the incidence or prevalence of bovine TB in cattle herds. The models that most accurately fitted the data were those that did not include badger culling as a parameter, suggesting that factors other than culling (cattle testing) were more likely to be the cause of the reduction in disease in cattle. Badger culling efforts appear to be to no effect. A summary of this research is available to read on our 18 March 2022 blog here. You can read an open access copy of the full paper here. A three minute video illustrating the work is available to view here.

Badger culling outcomes were always uncertain

With no analysis able to show a disease benefit from industry-led badger culling, the analysis from the original Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) remains pivotal to any decision to cull badgers. Published in Nature Scientific Reports in July 2024, Torgerson et al (2024) challenges the certainty of this original analysis. Read more about this here.

Commenting on this work, Professor David MacDonald writes “They found that the conclusions of the 2006 analysis are sensitive to the method of analysis used. Indeed, the analytical approach that Torgerson’s team judge to be the most obvious for the purpose, provides no statistical evidence for a culling effect, whereas a model comparison method aimed at selecting a model with the best out-of-sample predictive power indicates that the best model does not include the treatment effect of killing badgers. According to those statistics, killing badgers during the RBCT made no difference to the herd breakdowns, whether measured by either OFT-W or by OFT-W + OFTS.” In other words, badger culling in the RBCT showed no measurable disease benefit using the most appropriate analyses. On this basis, all badger culling must stop immediately.

New response from original RBCT authors

On 21st August  2024, and as a response to Torgerson et al 2024, two of the authors of the original analysis of the RBCT from 2006  (together with a third author) published two new papers in the Royal Society Open Science (here and here).

On 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—no effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle: comment on Mills, Woodroffe and Donnelly (2024a, 2024b). This was accepted for publication on  April 23rd 2025 and published on 11 June. The new publication exposes the many flaws in the old RBCT analyses (Donnelly et al 2006 and Mills et al 2024a&b), and is endorsed by a senior biostatistician who describes work in Mills et al as “naive at best”. See more on this here.

The way forward

Rather than pushing for Test, Vaccinate & Remove (TVR)  as seems to be the DEFRA & APHA current direction of travel (together with continued intensive, supplementary and low-risk culling), it is time to stop and implement the cattle-based measures that would finally get the disease under control.

Dick Sibley has shown why cattle measures are failing (see here). A BBC documentary screened on BBC2 at 9.00pm 23rd August (and now available on BBC iplayer) does an excellent job of illustrating the problems of inaccurate cattle testing, and provides solutions – without culling badgers. Called  ‘Brian May – the Badgers, the Farmers and Me’, it is a must see, and make the realities of the problem and current negligent approaches more visible.

It is time to stop living in the past and putting faith in unsubstantiated beliefs that controlling badgers can play a significant role in the control of the bovine TB epidemic. 

 

Activism and the Scientist

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npj Climate Action is an open-access, online journal published by Nature Portfolio. It focuses on research and action related to mitigating the hazardous effects of global climate change. It aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and practical climate action, informing policies at both local and global levels.

A paper entitled “The activism responsibility of climate scientists and the value of science-based activism” (Anguelovski et al (2025)) has recently been published in npj Climate Action.  The arguments for the participation of scientists as so-called activists in the development and evolution of government policy are eloquently expressed and hard to disagree with. And these arguments transfer from climate science to many other areas of important environmental science, not least badger culling.

Quoting from this new paper, it is surely sensible that “scientists have the right and responsibility to engage in activism” because “their expertise and ethical responsibility position them well to change policy”. This has not been the case thus far with the science of badger culling, where independent peer-reviewed science has been dismissed by government scientists; the term ‘anti-cull activists’ has been used to try to slur individual scientists (and the peer-reviewers of their publications) and undermine the veracity of work that does not concur with the established Government policy view (see the un-peer reviewed letter in Vet Record,  DEFRA press release & CVO blog). No peer-reviewed science has been published since to justify the criticisms made in these pieces. Gideon Henderson has since left his post as Chief Scientific Advisor for DEFRA without commenting further on the matter or substantiating his intervention. Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss remains in post.

How refreshing to read the recommendation the “..broader societal role scientists can play should be recognized and respected”. This has certainly not been the case with Government funded badger cull science, where there has been no inclusion of published scientists whose conclusions upset decades of Government funded work. Not only has there been inadequate dialogue, but the only route to release of critical data and policy rationale has been through Freedom of Information requests or grueling legal engagement. 

Badger Crowd is also happy to endorse the “call for the support of activists who engage with researchers in pursuit of evidence-based action.” As the paper’s abstract concludes, “Mutually supportive relations between science and civic groups will make science more horizontal, inclusive, and thus legitimate and impactful in the eyes of policymakers and society at large.”

Anguelovski et al (2025) includes a useful reminder of some important historical examples of scientific activists; “Think of Darwin’s debates with religious authorities, Snow’s work on cholera, or Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Entire branches of science (medicine, conservation biology) are defined by their activist agenda”.

Activism is one way the tribal behaviour of civil servants, can be opposed and overcome.

So, we will look forward to future involvement of all bovine TB activist scientists in the debate about the efficacy of badger culling and the direction of bovine TB policy. They have an important contribution to make. And it should have happened many years ago.

If you, as a member of the public, activist or scientist, support challenging the flawed science behind the badger cull and want to see a parliamentary debate on the issue, please sign the petition linked below calling to “End the Badger cull and adopt other approaches to bovine TB control”: 

How on earth did badgers get the TB blame?

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Bovine TB has been misunderstood for 50 years. All because new interpretations by MAFF in 1980 sent industry and scientists in the wrong direction. A new short report here  now tells the story of how this came about.

Studies of bovine TB in cattle carried out in the early twentieth century and reviewed  by veterinarian John Francis in 1947 described the disease as largely respiratory. That is, beyond infected milk, bTB is transmitted mostly through exhalation and inhalation of bacteria on fine aerosol droplets and by exchange of saliva. This understanding remained dominant until the 1970’s, and the policy to get on top of the disease was based on this science – and was effective in Britain especially during the 1960s.

As bTB dissipated, it  was partly the discovery of bTB in a dead badger in 1971 that led to a review of the science in 1979. A transmission experiment had suggested that when kept together in close confinement, badgers could  pass bTB to calves. The review by Lord  Zuckerman in 1980 was informed by reports written by a local MAFF veterinary inspector who was sure he had found the  important new source of transmission, and claimed that badgers were entirely to blame for the slowing decline of the disease in the west of England.

The new view was that early-stage bTB lesions in cattle (non-visible and small) did not shed sufficient bacilli to be a risk. This was contrary to the generally accepted view that prior to slaughter, un-lesioned (nonvisible lesion) SICCT reactors can have active TB infection, and are very capable of infecting. The John Gallagher (MAFF vet) 1980 view was that TB cattle were only infectious where ‘open’, well developed lesions were found at postmortem, and that this was a rare occurrence.

Thus, the prevailing MAFF rule of thumb that came to dominate in the 1980s appears to have been that even relatively young adult cattle had a kind of ‘safe’ latency, similar to that  found in TB in adult humans, via walled-off lesions or granulomas. Only around 10% of cattle infections were considered to come from other cattle, and that was via the oral ingestion route he thought. This was a huge change from the previous view that 90% of infections were respiratory and cattle-to-cattle in origin, with 10% from ingestion of faeces / infected milk.

Where did the new theory believe that the other 90% of bTB was coming from? Figure 1 below is a diagram from the 1980 Government Review of what was then labelled ‘Badger TB’. MAFFs’ position became that badgers were responsible for 90%+ of cattle herd breakdowns.

Figure 1. Graphic from Zuckerman Review 1980


TB testing in cattle was subsequently relaxed in the 1980s, whereupon the decline of bTB in cattle stabilized, then began to slowly increase again, mid-decade. As it increased in the 1990s, concern about the growing disease problem resulted in a new review in 1997, led by Prof John Krebs at Oxford University. And the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) followed from 1998 – 2005 to confirm the MAFF thinking that badgers were causing the new bTB epidemic.

The prevailing MAFF view, right up to the point after 2000 when it merged into DEFRA, was that badgers were;

“well adapted as the primary host of bovine tuberculosis in parts of Britain and much of Ireland”.

The attribution of infection to an external vector, principally badger, was based upon an association of high badger density with remaining breakdown areas. It is  illustrated in the 1980 review (Figure 1 above),  where cattle to cattle infection was regarded as a ‘remote’ possibility’. It’s hard to believe that this is what people thought back then.

Older MAFF vets maintained this position until as recently as 2019:

“Cattle are simply sentinels for the ever-increasing and widespread infection in badgers. They [cattle] are not the problem per se since the disease does not readily transmit horizontally in cattle until it becomes advanced and the animals are in close confinement.”

“Of those [cattle] reactors to the tuberculin test showing visible lesions, the great majority are in the early stages of infection and thus likely to be non infectious.”

The Government-funded ‘TB hub’ launched in 2015, promoted as the ‘go-to’ place for British beef and dairy farmers to find practical advice on dealing with bovine TB on their farm states on its microbiology page:

“Mycobacteria are unusual amongst bacteria in their robustness, resilience and slow growth characteristics, and the chronic and insidious nature of the diseases that they cause. M. bovis is a facultative intracellular ‘parasite’, meaning that it can survive and thrive inside the host’s macrophages (cells of the immune system that are meant to engulf and destroy the invading bacteria). It has many adaptations to intracellular life and may become quiescent (dormant) or divide very slowly, which enhances its survival. It has a tendency to become walled off in granulomas (small nodules of chronic inflammation) in the tissues.”

The problem with this statement is that it is vague about the timing and stability of ‘walling-off’ in cattle, whether it actually happens in stock slaughtered at a young age or older and how this may contribute to the spread of disease. In reality, the understanding of the infectiousness of lesions at different stages has not changed significantly within the science community. The veterinary research publications, and in particular advances in histopathology and immunology, widely confirm that early-stage micro and small lesions in cattle release bacilli and are infectious. Those with infected lymph glands almost always have small lung lesions that may be impossible or hard to see during standard meat inspection or even post mortem.

This dichotomy of views has had an enormous impact on disease policy making, because it is the old MAFF view (that informed the RBCT), that is still underpinning the current DEFRA / APHA view that Officially TB Free Suspended (OTF-S) herds present less infection risk than Officially TB Free Withdrawn herds (OTF-W). In reality, they are likely to have similar disease risk status, even if the number of cases recorded with visible lesions has fallen.

As the number of necropsy (post mortem / meat inspection) cases with visible lesions diminishes even further, the fact that the bTB epidemic can be heavily driven by cows with non-visible and small lesions becomes clearer to the epidemiologist. Evidence is now indicating that cattle-to-cattle infection is caused by the non-visible microlesions, and small and often hard or impossible to detect stage I and II lesions.

This is why, for example, in the Republic of Ireland the rate of bTB decline slows (after decades of testing and inadequate control) and stops at the point where visible lesions become rarer, yet new infection keep developing. This is what is now happening in England.  Its all down to 50 years of misunderstanding.

Progress on the control of bTB has been limited by misdescription of the epidemiology and pathology of bovine TB. This has caused confusion to non-specialists including Government administrators. It is important to note that bTB tests that can now identify live bacteria in blood, milk (and potentially faeces) offer a paradigm shift in clinical management of TB both in cattle and humans.  Within years, not decades. The skin (SICCT) test, even at severe interpretation, is inconsistent in its ability to detect inactive infection that may begin or continue within days. Other tests used between SICCT tests may do this, and would lead to an advantage in detection and control opportunity.

This summary is based upon an independent report “Fifty years (1975-2025) of changing perspectives on bovine tuberculosis infection in cattle and badgers”, February 2025, (here)  that has been sent to Defra in the hope of gaining recognition of this major historic issue.

Low Risk Area badger culling, yet again shown to be ineffective

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Minister Daniel Zeichner must stop wasting taxpayers money and ruining farm livelihoods immediately

A new addendum update (here) to the dramatic 2023 expose (unheeded by the last Government), “A bovine tuberculosis policy conundrum in 2023” (here) has been released. It has been forwarded to Defra who say they are currently undertaking a review of scientific evidence since 2018. The results of the review will feed into their bovine TB strategy that they also say will be ‘refreshed’ at some point in the future – but when is not clear. It looks like there will be inadequate consultation (or no consultation) with contributing published scientists and nature conservationists.

Defra’s 2014 policy predicted that it would achieve ‘Officially TB Free’ status in the Low Risk Area (LRA) by 2025.  Not only has this target not been met, but annual new herd incidents, incidence and prevalence have shown little change since 2014. Current data demonstrates little progress in LRA disease reduction over the past 11 years. Despite this, only weeks after Labour came into power, a new badger control cull licence was granted in Cumbria Area 73 within Hotspot 29. Throwing good money after bad, doing more useless, cruel badger killing and not seeing what is blindingly obvious – that the thinking and methods are completely wrong. So bad, for so long, and brutal to badgers, cows and farmers; the Defra ‘top team’ are wasting £Billions.

Cumbria: Area 32, Hotspot 21

In this hotspot, 100% badger culling and then vaccination of immigrants and survivors has been implemented since 2018. The graph and table below show bTB still persisting, with 4 ongoing incidents. To anyone who understands bTB control, this is an illustration of a complete failure to make progress;  it shows that the earlier infections (orange) are persisting due to cattle movements/sales and inadequate testing approaches.

The current Cumbrian situation in general 

The table below demonstrates how the county of Cumbria has shown no overall improvement in disease reduction since 2014. High numbers of OTF-S (Officially TB Free Suspended) herds remain, representing either new infections from traded cattle or recrudescence of disease that the SICCT and gamma tests have failed to identify.

 

Most incidents are disclosed by radial testing which is only instigated once an OTF-W incident is disclosed. This allows a 30 day delay, giving farms time to get rid of any ‘risky’ stock.  The incidents disclosed by radial testing are at supposedly Officially Tb Free holdings undergoing 4-yearly testing. These farms could have been trading undetected diseased animals for up to 4 years or longer. When it was suggested to Defra (Personal comms. Ministerial Unit 6/11/2017) that annual testing in the LRA would be appropriate, the response stated: ‘Extending annual testing to all cattle herds in the LRA, which is on track to achieve TB free status by 2018, would significantly increase TB control costs for industry and the general taxpayer with only negligible disease control benefits.’ This approach has fallen on its face, with ‘TB Free’ status in Cumbria as far away as ever. The process has failed badly. The worst thing of all is that those in charge do not appear to recognise it, or are deliberately covering it up, which would be worse. Why on earth are farmers not taking action to stop this travesty? Will the Government now give farmers compensation for the impact of Defra’s flawed policy over the last ten years?

Lincolnshire Hotspot 23

This is the largest of all existing hotspots in the LRA, covering 1550km2. All herds within the hotspot have been subjected to annual whole herd testing since October 2020. Badger culling commenced in Area 54 (the LRA portion of HS23) in September 2020, the cull zone increasing to 122km2 in 2021. In 2023 a further 24km2 was added to the Lincolnshire portion of control area 54, despite it only having one herd (can you believe it?)  in that whole area, and that herd was Officially TB Free.

‘

The data, illustrated above, shows minimal change in number of incidents in the Lincs Cull Area 45; badger culling has had no impact on TB levels in cattle. Enhanced cattle measures are likely to have reduced disease in cattle before badger culling began in 2020.

Low Risk Area in general

Throughout the UK, 45% cattle are traded by direct purchase between farms. The Low Risk Area covers approximately 50% of England, supporting a total of 18,268 herds. Cattle traded within the LRA between OTF farms are only subject to 4 yearly testing (with the exception of Lincolnshire), and do not require pre or post movement testing. Local trade is highly likely to increase the risk of spreading undetected disease within the LRA. The latest figures for which data are available show 637,239 movements within the LRA. As mentioned above, following an OTF-W incident, movement of cattle is permissible in a 30-day window before the introduction of radial testing. This hugely increases the risk of spreading disease to other areas.

Conclusions regarding Low Risk Area badger culling

Four-yearly testing with an imperfect test has resulted in self sustaining disease in cattle, enabling the development of hotspots in the LRA.

Budgetary constraints limit adequate cattle testing, which should be regular in and around breakdown herds and traded animals, including pre and post movement testing.

There is no evidence of disease benefit from the badger culling that has taken place from 2018 to September 2024 in the LRA.

Advice to Zeichner’s that LRA culling is necessary as a ‘last resort’ is both twisted and negligent.

Potential hotspots need to be identified earlier. At the moment they are not ‘declared’ without confirmation of a diseased badger, but this assumes badgers as having a role in the outbreak (without evidence), when official (Or unofficial) cattle movements are most obviously the cause.

BTB infection spreads between cattle herds in the LRA because:

  • Most LRA herds have only 4-yearly testing with an insufficiently sensitive test.
  • APHA allows trading of cattle in herds within a 3km radius of an OTF-W herd for 30 days after herd breakdown is notified, before radial testing is imposed. This practice provides opportunity for farmers to sell potentially high risk cattle.

APHA has made the mistake of assuming that  a ‘new’ incident is an ‘index’ case, whereas the true source of disease is equally likely to be local farms with undetected disease.  APHA is ineffectively ‘chasing’ disease, blaming badgers for infection while the bTB detection and control systems for cattle are wholly and quite obviously defective.

Daniel Zeichner must act immediately to stop what is going on in the LRA right now. There is not a day to lose. He must get a strong grip of the situation. 

Please write to Daniel Zeichner and your MP asking for this crazy Low Risk Area badger culling madness to stop. Farmers are being badly treated and having their lives ruined by bad epidemiology from Defra. Its time to take a stand before the disease spreads even further in the north and east of England. Enough is enough.

The full ‘Addendum’ from which this summary is drawn is available here.

 

Cull review details announced

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Government to review the last six years of bTB science for its ‘refreshed’ bovine TB strategy

Dan Zeichner

On 30th January 2025, Defra issued Terms of Reference (here) for the ‘comprehensive new bovine TB review’, that was announced last August. This included details of a scientific panel which will be reviewing ‘new’ evidence that has become available since the last review was published in 2018.

How objective will the new review be?

Sir Charles Godfrey

The panel, that last month began reviewing new evidence for the ‘refreshed’ bovine TB strategy, is largely a reprise of those who undertook the last review back in 2018, with one exception. The panel will be chaired, as previously, by Professor Sir Charles Godfray, University of Oxford. He will be familiar with the current scientific views of those whose work has been used to maintain badger culling for the last 12 years. He was personally involved in the statistical audit of the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT) (1998 – 2005), and so is extremely close to the discussion of issues relating to questionable statistical approaches raised since the last review.

As before, Godfray will be supported by Professor Glyn Hewinson CBE of Aberystwyth University,  Professor Michael Winter OBE University of Exeter and Professor James Wood OBE of University of Cambridge. Wood has been vocal on TV and radio in his long-term support for Government publications that have suggested that badger culling might be working.

Professor Sir Bernard Silverman FRS, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Oxford University has stepped in to replace Christl Donnelly, Professor of Applied Statistics at Oxford University, who requested to be ‘recused’, for reasons that have not been stated, but may relate to recent scientific discussion over statistical elements of the RBCT. As one of the statistical auditors of the RBCT, Charles Godfray made recommendations in 2004 for tighter control of the data and analyses. Donnelly (et al.) statistics from the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (here) have been challenged in a new scientific paper by Torgerson et al. (here). And the debate has continued with Mills et al. (here) and (here) and Torgerson et al. (here). Whilst it is welcome that the ongoing dilemma will be reviewed, is the proper approach to have Oxford academics looking into an Oxford issue? Silverman describes himself on his CV as “Recognised as a world leader through ratings and awards. Wide experience within government, as chair or member of boards and committees and as a departmental chief scientific adviser, with specialist expertise in national security, modern slavery, official statistics, etc.”. Notably, he was on the panel of the Anderson Inquiry into the handling of the Foot and Mouth Epidemic in 2001, so has some experience of epidemiology.

The panel is expected to report their findings by the end June of 2025. Which is unfortunate for all the badgers that will be killed in the culls for which licences will be issued from June 1st (and September 1st) 2025. And for those that are victims of the escalating illegal culling that has been reported since ‘legal’ culling began.

One cannot help but think that if Labour had really wanted an objective review of the science around bovine TB and badger culling, they would have asked an independent set of scientists with less ‘skin in the game’, and perhaps more distanced from Oxford to undertake such a vital review. But once again it seems that it is largely the same set of academics who will be looking at the science in which they personally have a historical interest and potentially, future stake.

Defra have announced a £1.4 million badger vaccination project in Cornwall (here) suggesting that they may have already made their mind up on the science evidence; they are still treating badgers as a central issue in the control of bovine TB, despite the growing doubt. Yet they are still unable to provide any certainty that this is the case. Some are making robust claims about whole genome sequencing and what it can show, whilst others are modelling what they think might be happening using outdated assumptions and unproven associations. Meanwhile, the strongest evidence of inadequate control points to ineffective cattle testing being the crucial driver of bovine TB, and the solution must therefore lie with cattle controls.

 

 

Bovine TB jargon explainer

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The TB status of cattle herds – how does that work?

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) maintain in recent publications (Birch et al. 2024 and APHA epidemiology reports for 2023) that it is the number of ‘OTF-W’ herd breakdowns that is the best headline measure of the change in bovine TB herd incidence in relation to transmission caused by badgers. How credible is this claim and why do they make it? The reality is that OTF-W (Officially TB Withdrawn) and OTF-S (Officially TB Suspended) cattle herds are simply two categories of a positive disease status.



The SICCT test – and the difference between ‘reactors’ and ‘inconclusive reactors’

The most commonly used test for bovine TB in cattle currently is the tuberculin test or SICCT (Single Intradermal Comparative Cervical Tuberculin) test. It is the main test for which farmers receive financial compensation if they receive a ‘positive result’ or ‘reactor’, and cattle are slaughtered prematurely. One big limitation of the tuberculin skin test is its sensitivity. Studies suggest that skin test herd sensitivity in Great Britain averages around 80% at ‘standard interpretation’. In practical terms, this means that on average 20% of TB-infected cattle herds may be missed by one round of skin testing, at ‘standard interpretation’, and it might be more. Even at ‘severe interpretation’ (explained later), many individuals slip through the testing net.

The skin test involves the injection of two different deactivated TB proteins, bovine and avian, in the neck area of each individual animal in a herd, followed 3 days later by a check of the injection sites to measure the extent of any skin thickening reaction (lump).

The SICCT test for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is read by comparing the size of the skin reaction to bovine tuberculin and avian tuberculin. At ‘standard interpretation’, the test is ‘positive’ when the reaction to bovine tuberculin is greater than the reaction to avian tuberculin by 4 mm or more. Where the reaction to bovine tuberculin is greater than the reaction to avian tuberculin, but by less than 4mm, the result has been considered ‘inconclusive’ (IR) and usually retested after 60 days. Where the reaction to bovine tuberculin is the same as the reaction to avian tuberculin, the test is ‘negative‘.

If the IR subsequently tests clear, it can rejoin the herd. These animals, then known as ‘resolved IRs’, are either isolated, restricted for life to the holding in which they were found, or sent for slaughter according to rules on the risk level at each location. If the second test shows a reaction (tuberculin lump is 4 mm or more than the avian tuberculin lump), individuals are classed as a ‘reactor’ and compulsorily slaughtered. Sometimes herds have to pass two tests 60 days apart after an initial ‘inconclusive‘ test to regain ‘TB Free’ status.  Animals with lumps less than 4mm may also be slaughtered as ‘direct contacts’ (DC’s), (individuals that have been in contact with known infected animals).

Research has found that the odds of a ‘resolved IR’ becoming a subsequent ‘reactor’ during study periods were seven and nine times greater than for negative testing cattle in the HRA and Edge Area of England respectively (see May et al. 2019 here). So why create such an important operational, yet subjective division between ‘reactors’ and ‘inconclusives’?

What happens to an animal that is a ‘reactor’?

An animal that is a ‘reactor’ is slaughtered and examined for signs of bTB. It must have either a ‘post-mortem examination’ (PME) undertaken either by an APHA veterinary pathologist, or in the vast majority of cases, an examination at an abattoir where meat inspectors undertake a ‘simple post-mortem meat inspection’ (PMMI). Both processes (PME & PMMI) are looking for ‘visible lesions’. These are physiological changes to organs, glands and other areas caused by the disease. Tissue samples from selected ‘positive’ animals are taken for further testing (bacteriological culture) in one of APHA’s designated diagnostic laboratories to try and grow M. bovis (the bovine TB bacilli) and then identify the specific strain of the bacterium through DNA typing or sequencing. Alternatively, M. bovis may be confirmed via PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) analysis. PCR is a laboratory technique for rapidly producing copies of a specific segment of DNA, which can then be studied in greater detail. Evidence of bTB infection by one of these methods results in the ‘confirmed’ status.

It is not always possible to locate ‘visible lesions’ at PMMI, and therefore culture the bacterium from infected animals. This is particularly so if ‘micro-lesions’ are present; these are too small to be detected visually and can only be identified by fine sectioning of tissues. Furthermore, although ‘visible lesions’ of bTB are usually located in the lung tissues and associated lymph nodes, their location can vary depending on the movement of infection around the animal post-primary infection. The size and number of visible lesions (if present) can also vary and are not always correlated with the length of time an animal might have been infected. 

How accurate are the abattoir checks for TB lesions – and thus how accurate is the ‘confirmed’ status?

Stating the obvious, abattoir checks are very different to laboratory checks: the proportion of abattoir checks to laboratory checks is unclear. The ‘necropsy’ (autopsy for animals) of the dead animal in an abattoir is a rapid procedure, undertaken in slaughterhouse conditions. The meat inspector doing the procedure has a limited amount of time to look for TB lesions; some have reported as little as 4 minutes per animal. In this time, they have to administer 6 major cuts to the carcass and may take samples in 3 different locations; glands, lungs, gut.   

During the conveyor belt nature of rendering, it is quite possible that the animal to whom each set of guts belong is unclear, so in the event of lesions being found, the process has to be stopped, causing delay and cost to try to clarify. In order to avoid faecal contamination of the abattoir, the guts are rarely (if ever) opened. The search for gut lesions is therefore restricted to examination of the outside of the organ only, and is it therefore more likely to miss diseased tissue here than in other locations.

If lesions are found, restrictions start to kick in. The abattoirs must temporarily slow operations and the area must be cleaned, losing working time & efficiency. Extra paperwork must be completed. It is not in the interest of any of those involved to find lesions – the schedule becomes less efficient and less profitable. It has even been suggested that ‘not spotting’ disease can sometimes be encouraged.

How do ‘confirmed reactors’ and ‘unconfirmed reactors’ relate to OTF-S and OTF-W status?

If the animal is registered as a ‘confirmed reactor’, the herd from which it came is registered as ‘OTF-W’ (withdrawn). If no lesions are found, and the checks for M. bovis bacteria are negative, the animal is registered as an ‘unconfirmed reactor’ and the herd is registered or remains as ‘OTF-S’ (suspended). A herd is also considered ‘OTF-S’ when animals are removed/separated due to a skin test finding of ‘inconclusive reactors’ and must be retested to become OTF (Officially TB Free) again.

Is there a clear difference between ‘OTF-W’ and ‘OTF-S’ using the ‘confirmed’ and ‘unconfirmed’ method of disease surveillance?

The division of ‘reactors’ into ‘confirmed’ and ‘unconfirmed’ has created an artificial and unmeasurable division of disease diagnosis and infectiousness. All ‘reactors’ have been exposed to bTB, all have some level of disease, all may be infectious. All should be treated as such. Which is why in Wales, since 01 April 2023, the SICCT test is read at ‘severe interpretation’. This means that the ‘positive’ cut-off point (difference in bump size) is lowered so that some animals previously classified as ‘inconclusive reactors’ (IRs) at the standard interpretation are now classified as full ‘reactors’. Thus Wales now regards the majority of herds with ‘reactors’ of all kinds as ‘OTF-W’ by default.

The reason bovine TB proliferates is because the OTF-S herds that clear their onward tests, but that are in reality still infected, are likely to go on to infect the herds to which they are sold, and the disease can then take years to appear in that new herd. ‘Reactors’ from the new herd may not reveal ‘visible lesions’ at PME, and then the source of disease cannot be traced back. In this situation, ‘environmental’ sources (usually badgers) have often been blamed for the ‘new’ infection.

The current system is based on the outmoded vet and farmer ‘rule of thumb’ that cattle may carry bovine TB in a manner that is low risk to other cows. This is not the case, as any that are truly in remission are always vulnerable to ‘recrudescence’ and becoming infectious, and it is an unpredictable risk. It could happen for a range of reasons such as stress, ill health or use of medication. The kind of long term ‘latency’ seen in human TB has never been demonstrated in cattle.

The result of the current testing regime is to separate positive testing animals into two clearly overlapping categories. The high specificity of the SICCT test (approximately 99.98% at standard interpretation) means that any cow that tests positive is almost certain to carry bovine TB.

So why has APHA chosen to use OTF-W as a measure of disease rather than OTF-S?

The number of OTF-W herds has been coming down in recent years as the later cases / older infections are those that are most likely to be detected by testing. DEFRA are keen to report that their bTB control policy is working, and they largely use data for OTF-W rather than OTF-S which has stayed constant or is slightly rising, to try to show this (see below & recent letter in Vet Record). This is even though common sense says that ‘all reactors’ (both conclusive and inconclusive) are positive for bovine TB, and therefore better reflect ‘new infection’ rate. So OTF-W + OTF-S would be the statistic that best shows overall disease trends. The current (September 2024) bTB Dashboard for England show the total number of New Herd Incidents (NHI’s) at 2464, of which 1042 (42%) are OTF-W, and the higher 1422 (58%) are OTF-S.



And also…

The results of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) are the basis for the government badger cull policy. The RBCT is the science that DEFRA has used to create policy, and in court to defend their decisions to experiment with badger culling from 2013. The RBCT claimed that proactive badger culling can significantly reduce bovine TB in cattle within cull areas; very many subsequent studies are heavily derived from it. The RBCT claimed a 19% benefit from badger culling from analyses that used only OTF-W data. However, when OTF-S + OTF-W data were used, all analyses agreed that there was no measured benefit from badger culling. Badger culling did not have any effect at all. 

It is not difficult to see where the oversights have been and are still being made. How is it possible that basic scientific and veterinary evidence is being so badly misrepresented? It is clear that the distraction caused by the claim that badger culling will deliver significant disease benefit has been disastrous. Published science shows that it hasn’t worked (here) and that it was never going to work (here and here). So why don’t DEFRA urgently do something about it?

Bovine TB roundup 2024

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Everything changes but stays the same?

2024 has been a remarkable year, where it seems that better awareness of the bovine TB scandal is emerging. Yet institutional forces struggle to grapple with poor science, the embarrassment of failing policy and the need for decisive steps to overcome decades of oversight, dogma and vested interest.

In February, DEFRA’s Animal and Plant Agency (APHA) published a controversial paper (Birch et al.) in Scientific Reports that the DEFRA Minister Steve Barclay trumpeted immediately as showing that badger culling since 2013 was ‘working’ (see here). The journal  and the authors refused to change a misleading abstract that implied this, despite the paper stating twice (on careful reading) that the observed overall reduction in bovine TB over the study period could not be attributed to badger culling. All disease measures implemented, including more frequent cattle testing, were analysed together with no control. Basically the analysis is just a time period study, as pointed out in Prof David Macdonald’s earlier comments on the draft paper (see here) for work already labelled as policy-led science (see here).

DEFRA’s tactics appeared to be to try to justify badger culling in order to reverse the ‘phasing out’ of badger culling by the 2020 ‘Next Steps’ policy. This was perhaps also addressing the High Court’s expectation, stated 5 years previously, that policy should ‘adapt and learn’ from the results of Supplementary Badger Culling. The DEFRA plan, as revealed on 14th March, was to introduce something called ‘targeted culling‘ (see here), which was in reality a rebranding of epidemiological culling as carried out in the Low Risk Area (‘LRA Culling’) of England since 2018, including in Cumbria, south of Penrith. In this and a further cull area in Lincolnshire, culling of 100% of badgers in a core area and beyond was permitted over three or more years, with some badger vaccination afterwards.  DEFRA refused to comment on a detailed report (here) documenting its epidemiological failings and its continuing clumsy approach to investigating sources of infection. Even now new breakdowns are happening in the Cumbria Area 32 due to unwise cattle trading and persistent infection.

The March 2024 DEFRA plan was to allow extensive culling into the future across England at the discretion of the Chief Veterinary Officer, potentially under a general licence, further negating provisions of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. It looked like Defra were trying to put a policy in place before a General Election, to commence in autumn 2024. The DEFRA plan looked like a normalization of widespread  badger culling into the future. Likely to further stimulate illegal badger culling that is now reported to be rife in some bovine TB areas.

Problems for Defra came from two important interventions. A prompt Freedom of Information request to determine Natural England’s reasons for continuing the licensing of  Supplementary Badger Culling (extension from 4 to up to 9 years of culling) resulted in disclosure of their weak scientific justification (see here). Secondly, legal complaints that the five week consultation period was too short to evaluate the APHA paper and the government’s somewhat confusing interpretation of it, resulted on 19th April, in an extension by 3 weeks of the consultation period, to 13th May (see here).


A pre-action protocol letter for Judicial Review regarding the March proposals to ‘evolve the badger control policy’ was lodged on 16th May (see here). The legal challenge was to the consultation itself, arguing that it was :

  • Misleading and provided inadequate information regarding badger culling efficacy
  • Failed to provide information on potential ecological impacts of the policy
  • Lacked meaningful information on economic impacts of the policy

Ultimately, the consultation fell victim to the announcement by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on 22nd  May of a General Election on 4th July. This  froze consideration of the consultation responses  until after the election. The Labour Party manifesto for the 2024 General Election was published on 13th June, and stated its intention to end “ineffective” badger culling, as previously pledged during the 2019 general election. Labour had been keeping very quiet about its position on culling in the months leading up to the election. Presumably this was a tactic to placate the farming vote which was needed before Reform UK Party decided to stand. It appeared to have agreed to keep some badger culling going as a part of a back-room deal with the NFU, a fix that was later exposed by reliable sources (see here). 

Meanwhile in Wales, Deputy first Minister of Wales Huw Irranca-Davis in a statement in the Senedd on 14th May 2024 (see here) articulated the superior progress on bovine TB being made in Wales without badger culling: 

“But just to be clear, from 2012, which is the year before badger control policy in England, to 2023, on the latest published data, the herd incidence in England decreased from 9.8 to 7.3; it was a 26 per cent decrease. In Wales, over the same period, herd incidence decreased from 10 to 6.8. It’s a 31.3 per cent decrease. I simply put that on record—those are Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs figures, by the way—to say that we are doing things differently in Wales, in line with our programme for government, but we’re also succeeding in many ways.”

Labour’s landslide victory on 4th July heralded a further rollercoaster of events. Within six weeks it announced that the new government did not intend to pursue the policy of ‘targeted’ culling, making the key legal challenge to the consultation unnecessary. Instead it planned to work on a “refreshed bovine TB control badger strategy”.

An important new extensive re-evaluation of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial was published in Nature Scientific Reports by Prof Paul Torgerson with others, on 15th July, shaking the foundation stone of Government policy since 2011. It provided further and highly extensive evidence that the role of badgers in bovine TB in cattle was fatally misconstrued, and the problems had not been spotted over 20 years ago (see here).

Throughout 2023 and 2024 the Oxfordshire Badger Group (OBG), with support from others, had tried to initiate discussion of the RBCT design and findings with Oxford University, but reported a wall of reluctance or silence. Around 7,000 badgers have been shot in Oxfordshire so far. On 18th July OBG presented a petition with over 50,000 signatures to Oxford University School of Biology in central Oxford. OBG called on Oxford University to own what it called “Your Bloody Science” and asked them to “Speak out against badger extermination”, (see here). There was apparently no meaningful contribution to the debate from the Oxford RBCT scientists. Also in July, Betty Badger (AKA Mary Barton, a member of the Herts and Middlesex badger Group) marked her marathon 8 years of protesting badger culling outside Defra’s main London office (every Thursday), switching attention towards the broken promises made to her over the previous year that she “wouldn’t  be standing there after the election” (see here).

On 21st August two new papers were published by Mills et al. in Royal Society Open Science, largely repeating the analyses in Torgerson et al 2024, but coming to a different conclusion (see here & here). Further concerns by Torgerson et al were preprinted on September 20th in BioRxive (see here) and the matter will continue into 2025.

On 23rd August, the BBC2 documentary ‘Brian May – The Badgers, the Farmers, and Me’ was aired, illustrating how the badger cull policy implemented since 2013 has failed farmers completely (see here).

There followed a tirade of rather ill-founded and rushed accusations and complaints by multiple members of the usually secretive BTB Partnership (see here) on X (formerly Twitter), presumably reflecting the collective tribal response of government hirelings. The documentary showed how, following the cull, rates of bTB infection and consequent numbers of cattle slaughtered are in some areas no better than they were in 2013, and in other areas they are worse than ever. See here and the graph below for Gloucestershire cull area 1 that is central to government (APHA) publications; they tell the story. The real culprit, as exposed by leading cattle vet Dick Sibley, is the limitations of the standard SICCT and Gamma testing procedure and constraints over using newer tests to detect the hidden disease reservoir in herds. The work from the Save Me Trust supported case study farms in England and Wales and all pointed in one direction – the misunderstanding of disease control needs by the Government professionals and contractors in charge. Farmers in south west England were beginning to recognize how far away from real solutions the Government and their representatives have been taking them. Both with the trading of herds not properly freed from bTB infection, and the false narrative around badger transmission. The documentary represents the most decisive moment in bovine TB control since the epidemic was created nearly 25 years ago following a long period with lax testing.

Fact: Badger culling has made no visible difference to the number of annual bTB incidents  in the 2013-2021  ‘pilot’ cull area in Gloucestershire. Note 2024 has now reached 26 incidents as of 4th December.


On 30th August,  intent to refresh the bovine TB control badger strategy was announced:

“Government to end badger cull with new TB eradication strategy”,

although only in relation to a bit of proposed tinkering around with badgers, as follows:

  • A new survey starting in December 2024 to try to estimate cull impacts. This will be a sample of signs of sett activity in culled areas and conclude generally that badgers are highly mobile and recolonise quickly, but give no reliable indication of numbers.
  • Surveillance of the prevalence of bTB in found dead or culled badgers and deer. To show, as expected, and previously shown, that bTB remains in wildlife when the general countryside remains infected by infected cattle trading, and afterwards for several years. This seems to be aimed at somehow informing further misguided culling and vaccination efforts, based on outmoded thinking.
  • Establish a new Badger Vaccinator Field Force: As Defra fall  even further and hopelessly behind its badger vaccination targets of 2023 and now 2024, accelerating potential future costs, this ambition looks as futile as it is a pointless exercise. No one thinks it can work, no one wants to do it, no one wants to pay for it. There is no evidence it can contribute.
  • Badger vaccination study to rapidly analyse the effect of badger vaccination on the incidence of TB in cattle: There would be nothing rapid about this and for it to have any value would be a long term, hugely expensive exercise, with controls. The flawed anticipation is that it will “give farmers greater confidence that doing so will have a positive effect on their cattle.”  This just illustrates how misguided and out of touch the same-old Defra/APHA staff and advisors remain.

This was very disappointing to say the least. And whilst there was a clearly stated intention to stop culling badgers, shockingly that would not now happen before the end of the current Parliament (2029), leaving the door open for culling to continue with the next Government. The plans proposed five more years of badger culling and to everyone’s disbelief, even a new cull area in Cumbria north of Penrith. Where unwise cattle trading has created a small number of breakdowns in a zone called Hotspot 29: around 1,000 mostly healthy badgers are to be shot over a wide area (see here and below), with hundreds shot this autumn. It was almost as if Defra/APHA staff wanted to appease the NFU with a “badger culling business as usual” promise no matter what independent reports or the new politicians said. Such is the grip of vested interest on civil servants.

Hotspot 29. Herd breakdowns 2013-2024. Note in 2020 due to covid restrictions, cattle testing was suspended. This resulted in increased trading of diseased cattle and further infections in subsequent years. In 2022 many new enhanced tests began to address the 2021 increase in the area, with the APHA/CVO epidemiological mistake of blaming it on badgers. It is what the 2018 LRA policy calls a ‘precautionary’ measure, and is the travesty of a failed policy that Labour now perpetuates, despite promising not to. There has been a further breakdown in December 2024 making 8 breakdowns.

And so in September, the badger culling season under a Labour administration got into full swing in the High Risk, Edge and Low Risk Areas of England for a 12th year, to kill (often in a cruel way) around 15,000 more mostly completely healthy adult and cub badgers. This will bring the total reported killed since 2013 close to the 250,000 mark.

On 24th October APHA’s “Year End Descriptive Epidemiology Reports” for  Bovine TB control were published online for the Edge Area counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Progress is no longer on target for any of these areas, apparently due to inadequate funding for disease control following Brexit cutbacks (see here and here).

Published on 25th October, Science and Politics, a book by by Ian Boyd  appeared to try to distance the author (Defra Chief Scientific Advisor 2012-2019) from his pivotal role in convincing farmers that badgers needed to be culled (see Boyd’s conceptual model below). His role in encouraging the badger cull roll-out  was exposed in court copies of internal Defra emails in 2016. This, despite his self-confession on Civil Service tribalism, having maneuvered in the ‘golden cage’ to deliver ‘Boyd’s cull’ (see here). 

Ian Boyd’s Conceptual model on why badger culling is essential


As the year wound down, the Oxfordshire Badger Group supported a scientific seminar, in Oxford, delivered by Prof. Paul Torgerson on 18th November: key RBCT academics together with Defra & APHA officials were invited to discuss the science and statistics but all declined. 

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Natalie Bennett) hosted a special meeting on Government bovine TB policy at Millbank in Westminster on 19th November, with presentations by Prof Paul Torgerson and veterinarian Dick Sibley. The meeting was well attended from the Lords and Commons, but all Defra and APHA officials and staff invited to attend declined the invitation (see Vet Record: here).

On 28th November,  the Northern Ireland Chief Veterinary Officer Review of Bovine Tuberculosis in Northern Ireland (prepared by cattle breeder Brian Dooher) (see here) was published in advance of publication of a consultation document over policy expected in the spring. This followed the fiasco over the last consultation, where the economic case was not made available and the consultation was determined invalid by the courts thanks to a NI Badger Group/Wild Justice legal challenge. BTB is getting worse in NI and badger blame rhetoric has reached fever pitch, based in part on misuse of the February APHA paper, and DEFRA’s position claiming that badger culling can be shown to work.  DAERA and independent advisors will need to be sure to produce an accurate document this time if the previous failure is not to be repeated, as sadly looks increasingly likely.

On 3rd December, Rob Pownall of Protect The Wild launched a parliamentary petition to end the English badger cull. Standing at around 30,000 signatures at the time of writing, the petition calls for “an immediate end to the cull and the implementation of cattle focused measures to control bTB, rather than what we see as scapegoating wildlife.” As the petition points out, research that has been “peer reviewed and published, shows no evidence that culling badgers reduces confirmed bTB in cattle. Over 230,000 badgers — many healthy — have been killed, disrupting ecosystems without solid scientific justification”. Please add your name to this petition here.

On 13th December Tom Langton delivered a presentation entitled “Veterinary Science, Uncertainty and Politics: TB and wildlife” at the Annual Veterinary Public Health Conference held at Vetsuisse Faculty at Zurich University. This looked at the flawed assumptions made back in the 1970’s that led to badgers being wrongly labelled as a ‘self-perpetuating bTB reservoir‘, on to field trials that tried to show a ‘bTB perturbation effect’, and statistics chosen to ‘prove‘ this as a way to stop culling. And the uncertainty, peer pressure, confirmation bias and reputational defence that has followed on as a consequence. 

What can be expected in 2025? Difficult to say, but with a Labour government now in charge, we have to hope for at least some meaningful dialogue on the scientific, financial and ethical considerations that have just not been heard over the last 12 years. We are looking for more than the ‘same-old’ broken policy and tired old arguments.

Thanks again to the hundreds of active supporters who have generously helped to fund legal work and provided information, analysis and support in so many ways this year. You have surely contributed towards seeing off widespread targeted culling this year. Next year we will continue to demand rapid change in approach to bovine TB policy, a change that is scientifically evidenced, and that will, at last, start to benefit farmers, cows, badgers and the public.  This change must start with meaningful dialogue.

 

 

 

 

 

Important New Parliamentary Petition

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

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

We believe the badger cull is unjustified and must end.

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

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

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

 

Add your name here.

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Randomised Badger Culling Trial Unsprung – the uncertainties grow

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The continuing questions over uncertainty in the published outcome of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) have rumbled on over the summer of 2024, and were reported on (here). 

Why are the statistical elements of the RBCT so important? Because the government badger cull policy rests all but entirely on them. It was the science that DEFRA has used to create policy and in court to defend their decisions to experiment with badger culling. The RBCT claimed badger culling can reduce bovine TB in cattle; very many subsequent studies are heavily derived from it, to the point that if it is wrong, it will send a wrecking ball through dozens of publications, reports and reviews. The stakes could not be higher.

Disease benefits claimed for badger culling by civil servants and politicians are in reality, far more likely due to implementation of additional cattle measures. But there is continued inference that badger culling is a cause of disease reduction because such benefits might be “predicted” from the results of the RBCT.

The chronology of published and pre-printed science on the statistical analysis of the RBCT as it relates to proactive culling is growing, so here is a summary with clickable links:

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 Langton.

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

12th May 2023. A revised version of “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was pre-printed in Research Square, and submitted to Nature Scientific Reports by Torgerson et al…

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

18th August 2024. Interim report on the August 2024 pre-publication response to the July 2024 re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of proactive culling (published in 2006), as a part of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), 1998-2005. Independent pre-publication report on the Mills et al papers to be published on 21.08.2024.

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.

The ‘Comment’ submission to the Royal Society Open Science is an extensive response to the two new Mills et al. (2024) papers which reproduced much of Torgerson et al.’s models, whilst re-interpreting the results.

The abstract of the Torgerson et al. ‘Comment’ is as follows:

Abstract
Re-evaluation of statistical analysis of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) by Torgerson et al. 2024 was rebutted by Mills et al. 2024 Parts I and II. The rebuttal defended the use of count rather than rate when considering bovine tuberculosis herd incidence. The defence makes biologically implausible use of Information Criterion for appraisal diagnostics; overfits data; and has erroneous Bayesian analyses. It favours ‘goodness of fit’ over ‘predictive power’, for a small data set, when the study was to inform application. Importantly, for ‘total’ bTB breakdown: (‘confirmed’ (OTF-W) +‘unconfirmed’ (OTF-S)), where modern interpretation of the main diagnostic bTB test better indicates the incidence rate of herd breakdown, there is no effect in cull and neighbouring areas, across all statistical models. The RBCT was a small, single experiment with unknown factors. With respect to the paradigm of reproducibility and the FAIR principles, the original RBCT analysis and recent efforts to support it are wholly unconvincing. The 2006 conclusion of the RBCT that “badger culling is unlikely to contribute positively to the control of cattle TB in Britain” is supported, but the route to such a position is revised in the light of modern veterinary understanding and statistical reappraisal.

The new Comment, that has not yet been peer-reviewed, highlights what is described as selective reporting, misleading interpretation, implausible model selection and coding anomalies. It will be of interest to Ministers, Civil Servants, scientists and politicians who currently,  under the new Labour administration, are ‘refreshing’ the bovine TB strategy, and policy. 

The two Mills et al. papers were published just a few days before the Intensive and Supplementary badger cull licences were issued for 2024, providing a rationale for culling to continue.

Defra outlines a refreshed bovine TB control badger strategy.

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Defra has today (30th August 2024) announced plans for a refreshed bovine TB control badger strategy. Whilst it is good to see a clearly stated intention to stop culling badgers, that this will not happen before the end of the current parliament (2029) is completely unacceptable. These plans propose five more years of badger culling, all without sound scientific basis, and would result in the total number of culled badgers exceeding 300,000, all with no measurable disease benefit.

It is equally disappointing to see proposals for mass badger vaccination to be employed as a tool against bovine TB in cattle. This is an unwelcome, and scientifically unjustified continuation of the badger blame game. The scientific evidence just does not support the continued focus on badgers as a significant source of bovine TB in cattle, despite ill-informed media reports in recent weeks. It is a complete waste of resources when the real need is to retrain vets on the science of bovine TB and wildlife, over which they have been misled for many years, and to change cattle testing policy.

While we welcome the statement that “The full strategy will be co-designed with farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists”, we are somewhat sceptical about how inclusive this will be. There has been no engagement with scientists involved in important peer-reviewed science (here and here), despite frequent requests for meetings or at least dialogue. Will there be continued resistance to accept published science that challenges the views of those civil servants at Defra who have been pushing un-evidenced, expensive and unethical policy for so long?  An uncomfortable history of bad decision making by those who need to stand aside to allow genuine progress.  

Not mentioned in the statement, is the 22nd August consultation on licensing of a new badger cull  in the Low Risk Area (LRA). It looks likely that Labour are not just re-authorising existing licences, they are planning to start new licences in new areas, this one in Cumbria in the Eden valley north and east of Penrith. This will have a 100% cull objective, repeating the failed epi-cull of the immediately adjoining area, the subject of a report last year (see here).  There are rumours that two further LRA culls may be licenced this autumn or next, possibly in Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire / Bucks and who knows where else?  

Here is the Defra announcement in full:

 

Government to end badger cull with new TB eradication strategy  

  • First Bovine TB strategy in a decade to end badger cull and drive down TB rates to protect farmers livelihoods
  • New holistic approach will ramp up cattle control measures, wildlife monitoring and badger vaccinations
  • Proposals co-designed alongside farmers, vets, scientists, and conservationists to beat TB that devastates livestock farmers and wildlife

Work on a comprehensive new TB eradication strategy has been launched today (30 August) to end the badger cull and drive down Bovine Tuberculosis (TB) rates to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods.   

Over the past decade, TB has had a devastating impact on threatened British livestock and wildlife. Over 278,000 cattle have been compulsorily slaughtered and over 230,000 badgers have been killed in efforts to control the disease, costing taxpayers more than £100 million every year. 

For the first time in over a decade, the Government will introduce a new bovine TB eradication strategy working with farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists to rapidly strengthen and deploy a range of disease control measures.   

The new strategy will mark a significant step-change in approach to tackle this devastating disease, driving down TB rates and saving farmer livelihoods and businesses. It will use a data-led and scientific approach to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament.   

The work to end the badger cull starts immediately and includes:     

  • First badger population survey in over a decade: The last major badger survey was carried out between 2011-13, leaving policy makers with no clear idea of the impact culling techniques have on our badger populations. The Government will work at pace to launch a new survey this winter to estimate badger abundance and population recovery to illustrate the impact of widespread culling over the past decade.  
  • New national wildlife surveillance programme: After a decade of culling, the prevalence of TB in remaining badger populations is largely unknown. The development of a new national wildlife surveillance programme will provide an up-to-date understanding of disease in badgers and other wildlife such as deer. Together with updated estimates of badger abundance, this will unlock a data-driven approach to inform how and where TB vaccines and other eradication measures are rapidly deployed to drive down TB rates and protect farmers’ livelihoods.   
  • Establish a new Badger Vaccinator Field Force: Badger vaccinations create progressively healthier badger populations that are less susceptible to catching and transmitting TB. A new Badger Vaccinator Field Force will increase badger vaccination at pace to drive down TB rates and protect badgers.   
  • Badger vaccination study: To supplement the Field Force, the Government will rapidly analyse the effect of badger vaccination on the incidence of TB in cattle to encourage farmers to take part and provide greater confidence that doing so will have a positive effect on their cattle.  

In addition, we will accelerate work on the development of a cattle vaccine, whichis at the forefront of innovative solutions to help eradicate this disease. The next stage of field trials will commence in the coming months. Our aim is to deliver an effective cattle TB vaccination strategy within the next few years to accelerate progress towards achieving officially TB free (OTF) status for England.   

The full strategy will be co-designed with farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists. It will consider a range of further measures including boosting cattle testing, reducing the spread of disease through cattle movements, and deploying badger vaccination on a wider, landscape scale. This will build on Professor Sir Charles Godfray’s 2018 independent strategy review.  

Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner said:   

“Bovine tuberculosis has devastated British farmers and wildlife for far too long.  

“It has placed dreadful hardship and stress on farmers who continue to suffer the loss of valued herds and has taken a terrible toll on our badger populations.   

“No more. Our comprehensive TB eradication package will allow us to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament and stop the spread of this horrific disease.”   

Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss said:   

“Bovine tuberculosis is one of the most difficult and prolonged animal disease challenges we face, causing devastation for farming communities.   

“There is no single way to combat it, and a refreshed strategy will continue to be led by the very best scientific and epidemiological evidence. With the disease on a downward trajectory, we are at a crucial point. Working in collaboration with government and stakeholders will be the only way we achieve our target to eradicate bovine tuberculosis in England by 2038.”  

John Cross, chair of the bTB Partnership said:   

“As chair of the bTB Partnership for England, I am delighted to hear Minister Zeichner’s intention to refresh the current bTB strategy. Ten years after its launch, the time is right to look again at the tools we use to tackle this persistent disease.  

“Bovine TB is the common enemy, not farmers or wildlife groups. Only by working together, will we reach our goal.”   

 The government will also publish additional information about animal and herd-level bTB risk – for example, the date and type of the most recent TB test completed in the herd of origin of that animal and how long the animal has been in the herd.  

This greater level of detail will be made available on ibTB – a free to access interactive map set up to help cattle farmers and their vets understand the level of bovine TB in their area and manage the risks when purchasing cattle.  

Today’s announcement ensures the government meets its manifesto commitment and represents a new direction in defeating this disease that will both protect the farming community and preserve wildlife.    

Notes to editors:  

Existing cull processes will be honoured to ensure clarity for farmers involved in these culls whilst new measures can be rolled out and take effect.    

The Bovine TB Partnership is a stakeholder-government collaboration established as a driving force for further progress towards disease eradication.  It is made up of experts from government (Defra, APHA and Natural England), as well as farmers, veterinarians, scientists, academics, and ecologists/conservationists, including representatives from the National Farmers Union, British Veterinary Association, British Cattle Veterinary Association, and the National Trust.

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