Badger Trust condemns Government badger cull targets
"...there has never been an assault on nature like this over a decade in our history.”- Peter Hambly
Badger Trust has criticised the Government’s badger cull targets, after Defra published advice on badger culling numbers for 2023.
The licence data provides advice to Natural England on how to set the minimum and maximum numbers of badgers to be culled in 2023.
The advice states that the minimum culling objective is for no more than 30 per cent of the starting badger population in cull areas to remain on conclusion of the cull.
Badger Trust estimates that this could result in up to 53,234 badgers being culled this year, which would bring the total death total to 260,000 since culling began in 2013.
The cull is in response to the spread of bovine TB (bTB) which, as well as being transmissible between cattle, can also be caught from badgers.
Cattle are often culled as an economic solution to prevent further infections, and cull zones were introduced for badgers in 2013.
In the report, Defra says that the chief veterinary officer has stated that the eradication of bTB can only be achieved in an area if infections across the badger population are addressed alongside the cattle population.
They say that the setting of maximum cull numbers will mean that culling will ‘not be detrimental to the survival of the population concerned'.
However conservation charities, including Badger Trust, have voiced concerns that culling is ineffective in preventing the bTB spread and risks the local extinction of badgers.
Badger Trust say that the badgers are not tested to establish that they have bTB or pose any threat to cattle.
They also cite a study conducted in Northern Ireland, which suggests that badgers play a smaller role in the transmission of bTB than cattle, with the transmission of cattle to badgers being more common that badger to cattle.
The group believes that cattle biosecurity is a better solution to tackling bTB infections.
Peter Hambly, executive director of Badger Trust, said: “The local extinction of badgers is happening right here, right now.
“260,000 badgers represent over half of Britain’s badger population – there has never been an assault on nature like this over a decade in our history.”
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Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
