Evaluating badger proofing with biosecurity trial

When simple steps are taken to keep badgers out of farmyards they do not appear to go out of their way to find an alternative route in.

That is the initial impression from a biosecurity trial being carried out by Woodchester Park researchers on 32 farms in Gloucestershire.

Infrared remote sensing cameras have been set up on all of the farms, which are triggered by movement during the night (unfortunately for the researchers, photographing cats, dogs and foxes as well as badgers).

Half the farms have remained the same and half taken action to keep badgers out, so a comparison can be made to see if the badger-proofing measures work. The aim is for the measures to be simple and cost effective, so the best ones can be adopted by farmers across the country at the end of the trial.

Ian Vernon, field ecologist, says the research team has worked with farmers to try and enclose cattle housing where possible. This has included making bespoke gates to fit awkward shaped entrances and adding solid panels to gates. Repairing gateways has also stopped badgers squeezing through gaps.

Where electric fencing has been used the ideal seems to be four wires, 10cm, 15cm, 20cm and 30cm off the ground, says Mr Vernon.

And although they have video evidence of badgers in the past climbing around 1.2m (just under four feet) to get to food, when their usual routes into buildings have been blocked they do not appear to strive to find alternatives. But, Mr Vernon warns, they are less than one year into a two-year project.

“Each individual farmer takes the measures that are of benefit to them,” he says. “What we’re doing here is evaluating the steps that could be taken. When this trial is over we’ll be able to give a pretty definitive impression of how effective these measures are.

“None of them are particularly radical. They’re just to keep things out that shouldn’t be here and are fairly easy to operate. Anything we do has to be plausible so there’s no
point coming up with something that’s so elaborate it’s impractical.”

Vaccination - the right way forward

THE work done at Woodchester Park has convinced Mr McDonald that vaccinating badgers for bTB is the right way forward.

He and his team are approaching the end of a trial looking at the safety of administering the injectable vaccine in the field, and will also take on the role of training others how to inject badgers, as they have more experience doing that than any other group in the UK.

Mr McDonald completely dismisses the arguments that have been put forward against vaccination, saying there is no evidence injecting badgers upsets them, causing them to move about more, potentially spreading disease. Even their work regularly trapping badgers, anaesthetising them and taking them away to a laboratory does not cause that, he says.

“It’s not resulted in any perturbation in the last decade we’ve been doing it,” he says. “Moving them is far more stressful than just trapping and administering the injection in the field. When we’ve been doing the vaccine trials we’ve caught the same badger more than once in the same place.

Minor interference

“Vaccinating is a minor interference and leagues and leagues behind the impact culling might have.”

He says it is hard to effectively test badgers for bTB in the wild and so he would be uncomfortable trapping badgers and culling those that test positive, as many may be missed.

However, there is ‘not a generally established principle that you shouldn’t vaccinate an animal if it already has the disease’ and so all badgers that are trapped can be injected. It is also not a problem if the same badger is vaccinated more than once.

Mr McDonald says it is a ‘misconception’ that every single badger needs to be vaccinated, as 60-80 per cent would be enough to significantly reduce disease prevalence.

“They’re the sort of rates we could work with,” he says, adding that dedicated vaccination teams could achieve that and an oral vaccine could potentially reach even more badgers.

Oral vaccines

He says oral vaccines are very effective, giving the example of the human polio vaccine and the wildlife rabies vaccine. Woodchester Park researchers are helping to develop the oral vaccine, including testing different baits to get the vaccine into the right bit of the badger so it can be used in a cost effective way. Work is also ongoing to find out how often bait might need to be put down and at what times of the year.

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