WHY CULLING BADGERS WON’T WORK – SUMMARY OF ISG REPORT

The Trials

The report is based on the results of the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT).

The trials, which began in 1998, were conducted in 10 TB hotspot areas known as ‘triplets’, each of which was divided into three 100sq.km areas - one ‘proactive’ culling area, one ‘reactive’ area and a ‘survey only’ area.

Nearly 11,000 badgers were captured using traps and culled. The RBCT cost £50m

The Results

Reactive culling increased the incidence of bTB in cattle by 20 per cent. This part of the trial was abandoned in 2003.

Proactive culling over five years resulted in a 23 per cent decrease in cattle disease across the ten 100sq.km areas, equivalent to an estimated 116 herd breakdowns prevented.

But it was also associated with a 25 per cent increase in the incidence of cattle TB on neighbouring un-culled land, equivalent to an estimated 102 breakdowns.

The net benefit, therefore, was the prevention of just 14 breakdowns over 1,000 sq.km over five years. It took four years for net benefits to arise.

The Reason

Culling disturbed normally stable social badger groups, causing badgers to range more widely inside and outside the culled areas, spreading bTB further.

Only in West Cornwall, where natural barriers, including the sea, limited badger movement, was this effect significantly less marked.

Cost benefit

While localised is likely to make the situation worse, extrapolation shows culling needs to take place over large areas – about 260-300sq.km – to have any benefit in disease control terms.

Even then cost benefit analysis shows there is no point culling badgers over large areas – as performed in the trials, it would cost £123,000 for each breakdown prevented.

Different Culling Methods, No Change

Modelling shows the disease control benefits and the economic justification would not change if different culling methods, for example, gassing or snaring, increased capture rates to near 100 per cent.

Nor would a different culling strategy, such as ‘outside-in’ proactive culling or preventing recolonisation by destroying setts, be any more worthwhile.

Conclusion

Even though badgers contribute significantly to bTB spread in cattle – probably 50 per cent in some areas – no ‘practicable method of badger culling can reduce the incidence of cattle TB to any meaningful extent, and several culling approaches may make matters worse’.

Eradication is, therefore, not a realistic aim other than in the very long-term.

Criticisms Rebuffed

Badger removal rates were about 70 per cent, contrary to the much lower figures released by Defra during the trials, while interference by activists, effecting around seven per cent of traps, had no impact on the trial outcome.

The Irish Question

The experience of badger culling in the Republic of Ireland, where culling trials showed big reductions in bTB in cattle and a 42 per cent drop in incidence has been reported since a culling policy was introduced, is not relevant to the Britain.

This is put down differences in badger ecology, farming practice, capture methods, trial and policy design and objectives and public attitudes.

Cattle Controls

Cattle-to-cattle transmission is very important in high incidence areas and the main cause of spread to new areas. Tighter cattle controls could at ‘least reverse the rising incidence of disease and halt its geographical spread’.

Cattle-to-cattle spread could be reduced through tighter movement controls, plus improved surveillance through better testing (see p1). The country could be split into ‘high risk’ and ‘low risk’ herds with different treatments applied in each.