7 Nov 2022

Badger Culling and Conservation in 2022

by | posted in: Acer Ecology | 0

2022 marks the 30th Anniversary of the Protection of Badgers Act (1992) which fully protects badgers and their setts. 

The Protection of Badgers Act (1992) outlaws:

  • the wilful killing, injuring, or taking of a badger; 
  • Cruel ill-treatment of a badger;
  • Digging for a badger;
  • Intentionally or recklessly damaging, destroying or obstructing access to a badger sett;
  • Causing a dog to enter a badger sett; and
  • Disturbing a badger when it is occupying a sett.

However, exceptions exist to the law; licenses issues by Natural England can be used to permit the disturbance or damage to a sett, but only if this in unavoidable. Licenses are only issued if the applicant has demonstrated that all efforts have been made to avoid the disturbance of a badger sett beforehand.

Licenses are not required for the below practices:

  • working with tools and/or machinery above or below ground close to a sett;
  • clearing vegetation near setts, provided they are not uprooted and don’t block access to the sett; and
  • clearing ditches and watercourses using hand tools or machinery

The need for conservation and legislative protection of badgers and their setts emerges from the concerns that badgers are the main spreaders of bovine TB (bTB). Legislation regulates culling to ensure population control by managing locations of culling and the people allowed to cull.

Over 176,000 badgers, from Cornwall to Cumbria, have been killed since the current badger cull began in Gloucestershire and Somerset in 2013. The badger cull is set to run until at least 2025, as current policy allows four-year intensive cull licences in designated areas. 2022 is the final year of the government issuing culling licences, instead adopting soft-management plans such as vaccination and relocation of badgers instead. However, despite new plans to control bTB by vaccination rather than culling, supplementary licenses will enable the continued culling of badgers beyond 2025. 

November 2022 sees the issuing of eleven additional designated areas licensed for badger culling this year. This has increased the number of culling sites to 69 locations, and DEFRA has issued a target of culling 70% of the UK badger population. As a result, 68,000 Badgers are expected to be killed. 

The 11 new areas of the Government’s badger cull are within the following counties:

  • Buckinghamshire
  • Cornwall (2)
  • Derbyshire
  • Devon
  • Hampshire
  • Northamptonshire
  • Oxfordshire
  • Somerset
  • Warwickshire (2)

Why are badgers important?

Badgers play a key role in the delicate machinery of ecological balance; they shape woodland and grassland landscapes by creating well-trodden pathways, and landscaping undergrowth and subsequent flora topographies. They also provide population control for their prey – maintaining positive ecological feedback loops of woodland and meadow biodiversity.

Badgers and Bovine TB: what’s the truth?

Culling is a management strategy designed to control the spread of bovine TB from badger to cattle; however, there is lots of contradictory information regarding badgers’ roles in transmission of bTB. Badgers have been blamed for spreading and infecting cattle herds with bTB through their urine, which contains active traces of the bacteria and is then picked up by cattle, potentially infecting entire herds. Farmers experience huge financial and emotional loss as a result, whilst cows themselves suffer from this fatal respiratory disease. 

Figure 1: Number of Culled Badgers in England (Sourced from Badger Trust: https://www.badgertrust.org.uk/cull)

However, the primary transmission source of bTB has been found to be via cattle to cattle contact (94%), and research has shown poor biosecurity and herd management to be a key cause of bTB contraction. Other wildlife beside badgers also carry the disease, including species such as alpacas, cats, deer, dogs, foxes, mice, rats and sheep. These species can all contract and transmit bTB, but badgers have been pinpointed as the main culprits of transmission.  

The effectiveness of badger culling cannot be proven by the government, as bTB cases continue to remain broadly stable nationwide. The Badger Trust has shown this stagnation of bTB cases, demonstrating the ineffectiveness of culling and limited role badgers play in the transmission of bTB overall. The Trust highlights that the 2005 RBCT (Randomised Badger Control Trial) found that badger population culling and disease contraction amongst cattle had poor correlation, resulting in the conclusion that culling badgers had little effect on bTB cases. 

Additionally, studies have found that disease management has seen positive results when cattle management and biosecurity strategies have been introduced, rather than badger culling. These conclusions were drawn by comparing culling and non-culling cases. Having said this, other studies have shown that soft management strategies, such as badger vaccination programmes, have no effect on bovine TB cases. 

Ultimately, there is no clear-cut answer to how to control bTB, or what/who is the main cause of transmission. What is clear is that badgers are not the bTB super spreaders we are led to believe; herd management, other species and biosecurity also play key roles in the transmission and contraction of Btb.  Cullings are ineffective management strategies that have been heightened in 2022, which risk local extinctions of badgers nationwide. Consequently, biodiversity net wealth is lost, disturbing ecological balances and erasing local ecological histories. 

Acer Ecology Ltd offers badger surveys, bait marking and territory analysis, as well as assistance with applications for badger licences. We also provide supervision of sett closure and design artificial setts, fencing and tunnels. For more information on our services, call us on 029 2065 0331.

References and sites of interest: