A new epidemiological report compares the scientific data on bovine TB herd breakdown in Wales and England over the last two decades. It evaluates outcomes, and looks for any sign that badger culling has had any effect. A summary of its contents is given below. You can read the full report here.
Introduction
The role of badgers in cattle TB, and whether interventions targeting them reduce disease, remains evidentially uncertain. Long-term data from England, where culling has been implemented, and Wales, where it has not, provide a large scale insight. Welsh Government data show a similar trajectory to England, with one measure of herd incidence steadily falling from its peak about a decade ago.
Testing and Surveillance
England increased cattle testing frequency in its High Risk Area, with six-monthly testing from 2022. The Welsh Government proposed 6-monthly testing for its High Risk Areas during consultation for a ‘Refreshed TB Eradication Programme’ (2016-2017). However, this was rejected due to industry objections to the financial and physical burden it would bring to cattle farmers.
Herd Incidence and Prevalence
Both countries had around 6% herd breakdown incidence to-March 2026, showing similar progress since 2005. Herd prevalence in high-risk areas declined, but with a recent temporary spike in Wales that is now under control. Wales’s High-risk West area remains a significant challenge due to persistently infected, large sized herds.
Badger Interventions and Scientific Evidence
England’s intensive badger culling from 2016 was based on weak evidence that is now considered to be inconclusive. Enhanced cattle testing (gamma interferon, IDEXX) detects more infected animals than before, but cannot find all. Genomic studies show cattle and badgers share bTB strains, but transmission direction and significance are uncertain due to the need for prolonged and detailed sampling. Scientific analyses of historic research and of data from industry culls in England point to badger culling being ineffective and not a credible bovine TB control intervention. .
Conclusions
BTB data for England and Wales is remarkably similar over the years. Progress in Wales slowed after 2021, mainly due to known specific issues in its high-prevalence TB areas. More targeted cattle control measures and increased testing are needed there to match effort in England. Evidence indicates cattle-focused strategies, not badger culling, are effective for TB control. The data supports Wales’s approach to-date as scientifically justified, with no benefit from badger culling being apparent in the extensive data collected in England.
Summary
The comparison between Wales and England shows similar reductions in herd incidence, despite more intensive testing and badger culling in England. Scientific evidence does not support the efficacy of badger culling, but strongly suggests that the application of cattle measures has positive control effects. Ongoing impartial data analysis is vital for adapting policy and achieving eradication goals. Much of the existing badger literature is out of date and strongly misleading. In following science and evidence, great care is needed to identify obsolete conclusions resulting from the re-use of historically flawed analysis.
Welsh Government’s new plans to kill largely healthy badgers, using discredited scientific arguments sourced from England
With a newly elected Plaid Cymru-led government, badger culling is back on the agenda. And behind the scenes, plotting has been uncovered. Disturbingly, this is under Labour’s watch – what were they thinking? So what is the history of badger culling in Wales, whose TB control in cattle has matched that in England, without harming badgers at all?
Historically
Between 2017-2023, the Welsh Government (WG) ran an experimental Test Vaccinate Remove (TVR) project. This ran into huge problems due to a conflict between the ‘Sophia’ vaccine and the DPP test (to test cage-trapped badgers for bTB). The result was the inadvertent (or otherwise) killing of mostly vaccinated badgers. The total cost of the abandoned project was an eye watering £1,695,465. A total of 99 badgers were euthanised leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill of £17,125 per badger. It was an expensive fiasco resting on poor advice and technology.
Who’s in charge now?
The Welsh Government Bovine TB Eradication Programme Board (TBEPB), dominated by industry interest, had its inaugural meeting in December 2024. As in England (the equivalent and notoriously bad BTB Partnership), this board is drawn heavily from the farming and veterinary industry. As of March 2026, it comprised:
A representative of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG, an independent expert panel that provides scientific and practical advice to the Welsh Government on its bovine Tuberculosis (TB) eradication programme)
4 farmers, one of whom is Chair of NFU Cymru bTB focus group
3 vets
1 NFU representative
2 anonymous APHA attendees (Defra are trying to influence Wales policy)
2 anonymous Welsh Government officials and CVO (Richard Irvine, formerly deputy CVO Defra)
A former Rural Affairs Minister with previous experience of overseeing a proposed cull in the IAA that was prevented by a High Court Judicial Review.
There is currently no representative from any wildlife or scientific organisations. (See here)
What did the board say at their latest meeting?
The board has engaged in a detailed discussion about its guidance on wildlife, covering the following points:
A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis should be conducted, with particular attention given to budgetary considerations
Decisions should wait for data to ensure any intervention is evidence-based
A wildlife representation should be included on the board
There was a necessity to identify pilot areas for intervention as soon as possible in order to initiate project activities
The board reviewed area-specific intervention strategies, including the use of England’s cluster template and potential mapping of clusters using epidemiological and local knowledge
Support was expressed for increased cattle testing in hotspot regions and for differentiating between minor and serious infections
Methods for tracking epidemiological changes were considered, with an emphasis on robust data and evidence-based recommendations
APHA was requested to begin mapping interventions implemented in England for possible adaptation in Wales, covering both wildlife and cattle concerns
Discussions included cross-border data sharing, improved communication among vets, delivery partners, and farmers, and the proposal of appointing a “TB Tsar”
The board debated pursuing either a single holistic policy or multiple updates throughout the year
The Chair was to share the previous RAG spreadsheet outlining initial priorities
This meeting of the TBEPB on March 11th, shows chillingly how almost nothing has been learnt from the past. Defra’s ‘carry on regardless’ attitude is being foisted onto Wales. It is founded in scientific denial, utilizing the failed badger interventions from England, and is also being promoted by Defra in Northern Ireland. The Government consultation on the Godfray review update (2025) with a refreshed bTB strategy is being awaited. As yet, the nature of the interventions being considered is unclear: badger culling, vaccination or a fruitless combination of both, as greenlighted by the Godfray panel?
Targeted culling is back on the agenda
The reference of the board to bovine TB “clusters” could indicate that targeted culling is their preference whether or not it is dressed up in a new name. This was the subject of Defra’s March 2024 consultation, issued under the previous English Tory government. Neither the outgoing Tory, nor incoming Labour Government reported on its results (see link).
This 2024 consultation set out proposals for badger interventions in England. The focus was to be badger culling and vaccination in the targeted areas. These areas would be known as clusters, but would effectively be large cull areas, as before. The stated objective, based upon now obsolete science, was to reduce infection of cattle from badgers by killing most of the badgers in a given area. Culling was to continue until the cattle breakdowns inside the cluster had reduced to a level where it was no longer deemed to be a cluster. Badger vaccination was then to take place as an exit strategy. The problem with this approach is that the risk of infection from badgers has yet to be evidenced, as has the efficacy of killing badgers to reduce bTB in cattle in the Low RIsk Area, as elsewhere.
In the Low Risk Area, government now say that they don’t need to see benefits from badger culling. BTB incidents will decline due to cattle measures, but they now say they do not need to ascribe any proportion of this decline to badger culling. They claim nevertheless, that badgers need to be culled because of the “perception” of risk. A complete fantasy veterinarian muddle. No need to see if it works – no certainty – just carry on regardless. Targeted culling follows same methods as failed English LRA culls?
As indicated above, targeted badger intervention (or epi-culling) broadly follows the Low Risk Area culling policy in England. But analysis of the data from the LRA cull areas in Cumbria and Lincolnshire gives no indication that any of the three areas, Lincolnshire 54, Cumbria 32 and Cumbria 73, have benefitted at all from culling.
Data from Badger control area 73 shows how it is the enhanced cattle measures and increased sensitivity of testing that have reduced bTB, before culling was implemented.
The December meeting of The TB Eradication Programme Board
At the December meeting of the board (link here), Professor Glyn Hewinson, TB Advisory Group (TAG) Chair, gave a comprehensive presentation on his opinions about wildlife and bovine TB transmission, claiming the need for a national policy to prevent transmission from wildlife to cattle, and emphasising ‘evidence gaps’ in Wales. The board discussed the importance of an ‘evidence-based’, holistic approach, the necessity of further data, modelling, and stakeholder engagement. This is terminology that the failed Defra ‘songbook’ has used for 13 years or more – it’s now being imposed on Wales.
But Defra is still resisting and apparently in denial about published science that shows that badger culling efficacy to date has been based on estimated benefits from flawed statistics (Torgerson et al 2024, Torgerson et al 2025, and Torgerson 2025). Evidence for a disease benefit from badger culling is equivocal at best. At worst it is held in place by conspiracy. Defra continues to ‘posit’ that industry led culling has resulted in a disease benefit to cattle, but is unable to produce evidence of this. And again resists published science that evidences a lack of benefit from industry led badger culling since 2013 (Langton et al). Defra has recently issued an apology for attacking the authors of this peer-reviewed paper in a manner that breached government standards. This is Defra’s second apology for getting it wrong.
Ominously, TBEPB vet & farming industry members reached agreement on both the wording and the overall strategic direction.
Even more ominously, the Chair noted that publication and subsequent engagement will require careful political handling, given the sensitivities surrounding the programme and its stakeholders.
Bad advice is ready to cripple BTB control in Wales for a generation by not heeding Defra’s English bTB failings. It began with the ashes of MAFF and has continued in the same scientifically flawed manner.
They can learn by listening, engaging with independent scientists. They must avoid advice from those who want to impose their long held mistakes and misunderstandings rather than admit error. It can be done now, or in court and the court of public opinion. It’s their choice.
Some observers may have noticed bovine TB breakdowns figures for Wales have levelled-off in recent years. For the first time in a long while they are showing a divergence away from the progress of herd breakdown trends that until recently was largely parallel with England. See the data here.
Since 2021, north Wales has experienced an uptick of bovine TB breakdowns in two areas in north Wales, which is causing a levelling of national decline. Looking at the genomic (spoligotype) data indicates that this upsurgence of disease originates from cattle movements from the English border counties of Shropshire and Cheshire, dating back to 2017. Radiating local movement of disease (local trading) within the ‘Low’ and ‘Intermediate’ TB Areas North, in Wales, has pulled down the overall progress compared with England. Wales introduced enhanced measures and increased testing sensitivity several years before England, resulting in its downward trend. But this has now been held back and it has nothing to do with badger culling.
While bTB control has been compromised in two areas of Wales, in 2022 England saw a welcome steeper decline in 0TF-W breakdowns as the use of 6-monthly SICCT testing and gamma interferon to better identify infected cattle began to take effect. Gamma testing raises herd testing sensitivity from around 80% (of the SICCT test) to perhaps 90% or more, halving the numbers the tuberculin test misses but has around 4% false positives. This is one reason why 6-monthly SICCT testing has been preferred as it also detects more than a single annual SICCT test. The additional 6-monthly SICCT tests were introduced in Shropshire and Staffordshire from March 2021 and in the rest of the HRA from January 2022. Defra have had issues updating their data recently, but it now appears that in the HRA cattle tests increased from around 4.61 million 2021 to 5,44 million in 2022 an increase of approaching 20%.
However, APHA data shows how, alongside, gamma testing bit into the main driver of disease – persistent herds, often with large numbers of cows and cow sales each year and infecting many new herds each year through local and auction sales. The big breakthrough came in 2019 with over a quarter of a million gamma tests across the HRA and Edge with a 30% drop in persistent herds across the HRA and Edge.
Further, for 2019, Defra followed the example of the Welsh Government and applied a 50% reduction in compensation for animals moved into a TB breakdown herd that were subsequently removed as TB reactors or direct contacts before the herd regained OTF status. Gamma testing was used in England at considerable levels from 2018-2022 in the HRA, and the disparity became more visible from 2020 as Wales became infected from the English Edge Area.
Peer-reviewed analyses show that in England there is no sign of benefit in the HRA from badger culling. The rate of decline of bovien TB disease prevalence in England’s High Risk Area (HRA) now matches the level of fall of 20% per year seen in the 1960’s, when the disease was quickly brought under control using cattle based measures. Had gamma testing been introduced earlier as in Wales and the Republic of Ireland, the English epidemic would have been well under control by now.
Six-monthly SICCT testing and use of Gamma testing will disclose more infected cows that escape the testing system and bring bovine TB down, but may not finish the job. A more sensitive and specific blood test such as Actiphage will be needed to do that. Cattle vaccination may also play a role too but with a disciplined approach to testing, may be avoided.
A new epidemiological report compares the scientific data on bovine TB herd breakdown in Wales and England over the last two decades. It evaluates outcomes, and looks for any sign that badger culling has had any effect. A summary of its contents is given below. You can read the full report here.
