Badgers and bovine tuberculosis (bTB)
16 September 2011
Below is the position of The Wildlife Trusts concerning bovine TB and badgers and how The Wildlife Trusts will be responding to the Government’s recent announcement that they are ‘strongly minded’ to licence a cull of badgers.
The Wildlife Trusts have engaged with this issue over a long period of time and our position is as follows:
- The Wildlife Trusts do not support a cull of badgers, as we do not believe this will deliver a significant and sustained reduction in cattle TB;
- There is a very real risk of exacerbating the spread and incidence of the disease in the badger population due to the ‘perturbation effect’;
- We believe there are alternatives to culling badgers, such as vaccination, that will deliver more effective, suitable, and sustainable reductions in cattle TB;
- The Wildlife Trusts will continue to review our position on control of badgers to reduce the incidence of bTB in the light of any new scientific evidence.
Further information is available on our website including a diagram explaining the ‘perturbation effect’ at: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/badgers-and-bovineTB
On 19 July, the Government announced that they will make a decision in the autumn, following consultation, on whether to proceed with a badger cull.
The Wildlife Trusts will be undertaking the following actions:
- Encouraging members of the public to write to their MPs (a template letter will be available end-August);
- Responding to the consultation by the Government on its proposed licenced badger cull (by 20th September 2011);
- Promoting vaccination and biosecurity measures as the best means of tackling bovine TB.
