Wildlife Trust Position Statement - Badgers and Bovine TB

Briefing for wildlife trusts in all parts of the uk

Background

Defra announced new control measures this week (14/15 December 2006) to address the problem of bovine TB (bTB). The Wildlife Trusts were invited to a briefing by the Minster, Ben Bradshaw, on Wednesday 14 December in advance of the announcement. To coincide with the announcement, two new scientific papers have been published, one in Nature describing the results of the preliminary analysis of pro-active culling from the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT), and the other in the Journal of Applied Ecology describing how social groups of badgers are de-stabilised by culling.

The Wildlife Trusts’ position statement

The Wildlife Trusts will only support the killing of wild animals where this is a ‘last resort’ measure and its own guidelines are followed. These are set out in The Wildlife Trusts’ guidelines on Killing Wild Animals, 1998.

Bovine TB:

• The Wildlife Trusts accept that TB in cattle is a significant problem for farming in the UK and that urgent action is required to combat the disease. We particularly recognise the important role that the livestock industry can play in the environmentally sensitive management of the countryside, and the serious disruption and anxiety caused to farmers experiencing a TB herd breakdown.

• The Wildlife Trusts welcome the Government taking action to address bTB and believe that this should be based on clear scientific evidence and well reasoned arguments. We believe that our response to the disease should follow the co-ordinated approach set out in the Government’s Strategic Framework for the sustainable control of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in Great Britain.

Bovine TB control in cattle

• The Wildlife Trusts believe that cattle-to-cattle transmission is the most significant route of infection for bTB and that Government action should focus on addressing this as a matter of urgency.

• The Wildlife Trusts believe that priority action to reduce the incidence of the disease should therefore involve improvements in cattle testing (including use of the gamma interferon test) and stricter movement restrictions (including pre and post-movement testing).

• The Wildlife Trusts also believe that anything farmers can do to improve herd health, lower stocking densities if they are too high, and improve biosecurity on the farm should be encouraged

• The Wildlife Trusts believe that to tackle the disease in the long term more investment is needed to develop an effective vaccine for cattle, to be used alongside the above measures.

Badgers and bovine TB:

• The Wildlife Trusts accept that bTB has now entered the badger population, and that badgers along with other native mammals may act as a reservoir for the disease and a potential source of bTB infection in cattle.

• The Wildlife Trusts believe that there is currently no scientific evidence to support the view that badgers are the main source of transmission of bTB to cattle (the main source being cattle to cattle) or that localised control of badgers is an effective way of preventing the transmission of bTB from a wildlife reservoir to cattle.

• The Wildlife Trusts support the scientific findings of the RBCT that localised or limited culling of badgers leads to an increase in the incidence of bTB. We also believe that recent scientific findings suggest that badger culling will only have the potential to produce a net reduction in the incidence of the disease if the following conditions are met:

• Culling is carried out over very large areas - This would result in the localised extinction of badgers
• Culling involves all landowners - This would include culling on nature reserves of organisations such as The Wildlife Trusts
• Culling removes all badgers present - This would mean using snares which would raise significant animal welfare concerns

• The Wildlife Trusts do not believe that meeting the above conditions is either practical or politically acceptable, further reducing the validity of badger culling as a control strategy.

• The Wildlife Trusts believe that because there is currently no clear scientific justification for badger culling the Government’s control strategy should be focussed on cattle-to-cattle transmission. Once the spread of the disease between cattle is under control, strategies to reduce potential re-infection from wildlife populations may be valid.

• In particular, The Wildlife Trusts believe that no policy decision to control badgers to reduce the incidence of bTB should be considered until work from the Randomised Badger Culling Trials has been completed, the full results published and the implications fully evaluated. Any action prior to this would be unscientific and pre-empt the results of the experiment.

• The Wildlife Trusts will review our position on control of badgers to reduce the incidence of bTB in the light of any new scientific evidence.

The Wildlife Trusts - 20th December 2005

Other items that may be of interest:

• New release 14th February 2006 - Cornwall Wildlife Trust says Culling is Not the Answer
• How to discourage unwanted badger attention to your garden

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