Badgers and Bovine TB (bTB)

A Viva! report by Justin Kerswell, Campaigns Manager

Download our mini-fact sheet on badgers and bovine TB [PDF]

(updated April 2012)

Bovine TB (bTB) is an infectious and contagious disease of cattle caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis. Although the main reservoir and natural host of M. bovis is cattle, humans and a wide range of mammals, including badgers and deer, are susceptible to the bacterium.

Badgers are often blamed for spreading the disease and are under threat of mass ‘culling’, but, the Independent Scientific Group report (ISG) – the largest ever study into the subject – concluded that killing them was not the answer to curbing bTB.

Bovine TB and Cattle

In the 1930s, 40 per cent of cattle were infected in the UK – and approximately 50,000 people a year caught tuberculosis, contracted either through infected milk or close contact with infected cows (57). The subsequent pasteurisation of milk and compulsory slaughter of infected cattle greatly reduced the incidence (1).

Although bTB is rarely fatal in cattle, with signs of infection usually only appearing in advanced cases, it does lead to reduced milk yields, making it a particular concern for dairy farmers looking to maximise their profits (2).

There are around 10 million cattle in the UK (38). However, Defra has said that 89.2 per cent of British herds were not under cattle restrictions at any point in 2010 (50). According to the Government, the number of cattle being slaughtered because of the disease is actually decreasing in England and Wales and all without killing badgers; with 25,000 cattle across Britain slaughtered because of the disease in 2010; 35,000 in 2009 and nearly 40,000 were killed in 2008 (100). This compares to approximately 90,000 dairy cows culled annually due to mastitis (infection of the udder), 31,000 due to lameness and 125,000 due to infertility (4). That figure is also dwarfed by the 2,690,000 cattle that were slaughtered by the UK livestock industry in 2010 for their meat or when their milk productivity dropped (51).

Bovine TB and Badgers

There are less than 300,000 badgers in Britain. Although protected by laws to prevent badger baiting, licences can be granted by the Government for 'disease control' and 'research' reasons. It is believed that only between 11-15 per cent of the national population of badgers has bTB (101).

Currently (April 2012), against public and much scientific opinion, badgers are due to be killed in two areas of England later this year as a trial. This despite the Government admitting that a 16 per cent reduction in bTB is the best that could be achieved after 9 years of ‘culling’ 70 per cent of badgers. The reality is that it is likely to make things worse by pushing surviving badgers to new areas.

The coalition’s policy is due to be challenged in the courts by the Badger Trust (probably in June 2012). Humane Society International is also seeking judgement that the Government is breaching the EU Bern Convention on protection of wildlife (92). Politicians in Northern Ireland are also coming under increasing pressure to initiate a ‘cull’ there by farmers (94). However, in Wales, plans to ‘cull’ badgers have been dropped in favour of vaccination of wildlife (a move announced in March 2012) (95). For more information see below.

Cattle farmers have long blamed badgers for the spread of bTB. In fact, research suggests there may be more reason to think that badgers catch bTB from cattle, possibly after feeding on larvae in cow pats left by infected cows. However, since the mid-1970s tens of thousands of badgers have been killed in an attempt to control the disease. Despite this, post-mortem examinations revealed that more than 80 per cent of those badgers were disease-free and in areas of high bTB incidences in cattle, no badgers were infected (5). A Defra survey from 2002 to 2004 found that six out of seven badgers killed on roads in areas of high infection were also free of the disease (6). Despite this, badgers are blamed for bTB outbreaks by farmers and are routinely scapegoated.

Already an estimated 50,000 badgers are killed on Britain's roads each year – around one sixth of the population (64). However, with a 'cull' looming there is also concern that farmers may be taking matters into their own hands. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there has been an increase in badgers being illegally killed and dumped by the roadside to look like the victims of road traffic accidents.

Worries about the mass extermination of indigenous wildlife are growing. In 2011, one dairy farmer in Tiverton, Devon said, “If I had my way, every badger in the country would be sorted out.” (73) In other words, badgers are seen as a ‘nuisance’ to be stamped out. So much for ‘the guardians of the countryside’.

The Latest Political Positions in Wales, England and Northern Ireland

Wales

In Wales, a change of Government in 2011 saw badger ‘culling’ pushed onto the back burner. A scientific review was commissioned and eventually made public in March 2012.

John Griffiths (Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development) announced in the Welsh Assembly on the 20 March 2012 that he was rejecting the ‘culling’ policy of the previous administration and was commissioning a five year vaccination programme for badgers across the identified Intensive Action Area (IAA) (the area that had previously been earmarked for ‘culling’) (95). He said: “This is the right thing to do and the right course of action.” Other cattle and biosecurity measures were also announced.

Previously, the last administration – orchestrated by Plaid Cymru’s Elin Jones – wanted to push ahead with a badger eradication policy despite the Appeal Court previously finding in favour of The Badger Trust and overturning plans to allow the Welsh Assembly to kill badgers. That ruling highlighted the fact that a 'cull' could only expect a maximum drop in the instances of the disease by a paltry 9 per cent (clearly showing that the main cause lies elsewhere) (70).

Predictably, the news that plans for a ‘cull’ had been dropped was met with anger by Elin Jones and several other opposition politicians. However, Ms Jones’ apparent sanctioning of farmers taking matters into their own hands has been widely condemned and calls for her to face prosecution have been widespread (96).

England

Regardless of recent developments in Wales, the current coalition Government in England is pushing ahead with plans to kill badgers in parts of the country most affected by bTB (the West and South West of the country). This despite recent drops in the number of cattle being slaughtered and incidents of the disease, which suggests that cattle specific anti-bTB measures alone are working and 'culling' badgers should be dropped from the political agenda altogether.

In July 2011, Defra minister Caroline Spelman announced that she had authorised two ‘science-led’ pilot ‘cull’s of badgers in England, which would take place from June 2012 (now pushed back to late August/September 2012). Almost immediately, Lord Krebs – the architect of the earlier Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT) – attacked the decision and said that: “[it] …can hardly claim to be based on scientific evidence.” (83) He also attacked the derisory ‘benefit’ that the Government announced it would expect. He said: “You cull intensively for at least four years, you will have a net benefit of reducing bTB in cattle of 12 per cent to 16 per cent. So you leave 85 per cent of the problem still there, having gone to a huge amount of trouble to kill a huge number of badgers. It doesn’t seem to be an effective way of controlling the disease.” (84) In early 2012 it was leaked that the two areas chosen would be in West Gloucestershire and West Somerset (although exact boundaries have not been released).

A consultation was launched to assess not whether to kill badgers (that had been decided), but on how “effective and humane” a policy of ‘controlled-shooting’ (i.e. free shooting with guns) will be. Despite a largely negative response to the consultation the Government has said it would push ahead with plans for shooting (and in lesser amounts cage trapping and shooting). This is hardly surprising as cage-trapping and shooting costs about £2,500 per square kilometre of land per year, as opposed to about £200 for shooting only (82) – this almost certainly means that farmers will choose the cheaper option if rolled out across the country.

In effect, ‘controlled-shooting’ means allowing farmers licences to kill badgers with high-powered rifles on their land in allocated areas. The only qualification needed will be ‘Deer Stalking Level 1’ (79). Badgers are nocturnal and so this will mean that most will be shot at night; which adds obvious difficulty. Also, because of their unique physiology, killing badgers with a single shot is going to be difficult. Spelman said that shot badgers would be collected to assess how humane this method of killing is (although she makes no reference to testing them for bTB; possibly because past studies have shown that the majority of them will be free of the disease). The obvious flaw with this is that badgers that are not killed with a single shot may simply be dumped by farmers, whilst others will undoubtedly be maimed and left to die in agony.

A panel of ‘independent experts’ to oversee this was announced in March 2012 (86). If Spelman is convinced that this policy is humane – and it is difficult to see how she or the panel will come to that conclusion – then Defra’s policy is to roll out ‘culling’ in 2013.

The policy also fudges the problem of perturbation (the process of badgers being dislodged from their natural habit and roaming to new areas). This effect is likely to be pronounced, as the first shot is certain to send surviving badgers scurrying for cover and potentially abandoning setts. This is why most reliable science has categorically stated that a badger ‘cull’ could make the problem of bTB worse not better. Indeed, Dr Rosie Woodroffe, a badger ecologist at the Institute of Zoology in London and who worked for a decade on the largest ever UK study of badger 'culling', said of licencing farmers to kill badgers: “I think it is scientifically among the worst options they could have chosen” and said that she did not believe that the announcement from the Government was scientifically based (80) (81).

Natural England – the Government’s statutory wildlife advisers – warned the Government about the problems inherent with their plans (a Freedom of Information request by the Labour Party in March 2012 showed to what extent). It said that the plans for ‘controlled-shooting’ were not comparable to the RBCT, as this approach was as-of-yet untested. It also warned that badger populations could be seriously affected and they could become virtually extinct in certain areas of the country – and that in turn could risk breaking the EU legislation on wildlife. Natural England specifically warned the Government: "If implemented on a large scale... it is our opinion that culling poses a significant risk of contravening Articles 8 and 9 of the Bern Convention” (92) (93).

The National Farmers Union has already identified 33 areas where it wants to kill badgers in England (78). These areas would be at least 150km2, but Defra estimates that the average area will be 350km2 (79). This would equate to 11,550km2 of England where ‘culling’ could take place – an area larger than Devon and Cornwall combined. The number of badger casualties is difficult to estimate, but Spelman said that between 1,000-1,500 would be killed in each of the two trial areas (which are both 150km2) over four years. At least 70 per cent of the wild badger populations in each area would be killed – although it is unclear how populations will be measured. If these figures are extrapolated, it would mean that the Government policy could kill around 115,500 badgers over four years in England alone. This would be a shocking toll on wildlife; which could mean annihilating over a third of the national population of English badgers. There is also the real possibility of badger cubs being left to starve to death in setts (25).

To sidestep the issue of cost, the English Government is making farmers pay for the ‘cull’ themselves. This in itself opens up a whole range of problems – not least of all the fact that figures show that a ‘cull’ will cost farmers more than if they did nothing at all (81). This leads to the possibility of them abandoning plans part of the way through – and the cost being passed to the taxpayer.

Questions remain, but what is clear is that any widespread ‘cull’ will be an animal welfare disaster on a scale that Britain has never seen before – and won’t even work.

Northern Ireland

Despite previously ruling out a badger 'cull' in Northern Ireland, Agriculture Minister Michelle O'Neill has been under increasing pressure by the Ulster Farmer's Union (UFU) to introduce a policy of badger eradication. She has confirmed that controlling the disease is a 'key priority' for DARD (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development). She has committed £4 million into projects looking at potential links between bTB and wildlife (95).

This despite the ‘Four Areas Trial’, which ran from 1997 to 2002, concluding in 2005 that "... the widespread removal of badgers was not considered a viable strategy for long-term control of bTB." (62)

Ms O’Neill has admitted that the result of legal challenges in other parts of the UK into the legality of killing badgers may inform her decision on future policy (97).

Despite no badgers having yet being killed under official sanction in Northern Ireland, as Ms O'Neill has acknowledged, the annual herd incidence has almost halved, from nearly 10 per cent in 2002 to just over 5 per cent on 30 September 2011 (97).

This reduction has been achieved by cattle measures alone. However, it has been suggested that there is still much room for improvement in this area. Victoria Magreehan, Strategic Development Director with the Ulster Wildlife Trust said in March 2012: "We understand that a senior DARD vet has criticised the general level of biosecurity on farms in NI as “not something to be particularly proud of”, and echoes the need for more work to be done double fencing perimeter fences and making livestock housing inaccessible to badgers to help prevent transmission of bTB."

As with other parts of the UK, there are fears that some are taking the law into their own hands – and may inadvertently be causing the disease to spread by illegal badger killing, causing a perturbation effect. The Ulster Society Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA) recently published a report of their findings after a two year long investigation into badger baiting in Northern Ireland. They said that they were “…shocked by the scale of organised badger persecution [that they had] uncovered in Northern Ireland.” The USPCA’s chief executive, Stephen Philpott said: “You’re talking about a huge number of setts being targeted right across Northern Ireland week in, week out”. The group also said that some farmers were at the very least turning a blind eye to the activity on their land (99).

[Also see ‘TB Fraud: A Dirty Business’ below for claims that some farmers in Northern Ireland have been purposefully infecting cattle for compensation]

[Also see ‘Badger ‘culling’: a recent history’ below]

Disingenuous concern?

There has been an increase in calls to implement a 'cull' to 'end the suffering of badgers' infected with bTB, despite the fact badgers with bTB can live a number of years without displaying clinical symptoms. The Badger Trust said that there was no scientific proof that bTB caused unbearable suffering in badgers and accused pro-'cull' groups of trying to influence the public into thinking that a 'cull' would be in the badgers' best interest (49).

Damaging Biodiversity

Little thought has seemingly been given to the removal of one species from a delicate ecosystem. Dr Dan Forman from the Conservation Ecology Research Team of Swansea University, in a letter to Elin Jones in May 2010, said: "It has been well established over several decades of research that habitats are incredibly fragile and that removal of top predators can cause a huge shift in the ecology and stability of ecosystems that can directly reduce species diversity." (66) In other words, we mess with wildlife at our peril. A policy to reduce biodiversity is especially at odds with global efforts to preserve it.

Non-violent approaches

The rush to slaughter ignores new, non-lethal solutions. An injectable badger vaccine was scheduled to be trialled in England throughout 2010, but the coalition scaled back plans in June of that year. Out of the six planned trials only one survived in Stroud, Gloucestershire, where badgers are being trapped and injected with the BCG vaccine over a period of five years (76).

This reduction in funding to alternatives is especially short-sighted as, in November 2010, Defra research showed the outcome of some trials that showed that vaccinating wild badgers over four years resulted in a 74 per cent reduction in the proportion testing positive to the antibody blood test for bTB (72). As natural prevalence of bTB is just 15 per cent then widespread vaccination could be of significant benefit. Especially as there is an annual turnover of badgers of around 30 per cent (badgers have a life span of 3-5 years). Theoretically, the number of infected badgers would decrease each year and new infections would be rare (101).

Additionally, laboratory studies with captive badgers demonstrated that the vaccination of badgers by injection with BCG significantly reduced the progression, severity and excretion of Mycobacterium bovis infection. This seems to strongly support the claim that vaccination alone could reduce bTB infection in badgers by a significant amount (in the same time period of 4-5 years that has been suggested for ‘culling’). It would not lead to perturbation and would also be cheaper than the Government’s current plans (see The Cost).

As it stands, despite the findings, this Defra study concludes that vaccination should take place alongside badger ‘culling’, which appears to go starkly against the results of these trials which show that non-lethal approaches will be enough to protect badgers from the disease.

There is now confusion about both an oral vaccine for badgers (which is being developed in the Republic of Ireland and New Zealand) and a cattle vaccine, with some reports suggesting that an oral vaccine for badgers could be ten years away – or available as soon as 2015 (101).

The real reason why an injectable vaccine is unlikely to be used in a widespread way in England is that the Government deems it too expensive to implement (although it is being used in Wales and is likely to be cheaper than current plans. See The Cost). This shouldn't overshadow the fact that badgers are not a major vector for bTB, but is being put forward by the Government as an excuse to push ahead with a 'cull'.

A 2009 Defra report – Options for vaccinating cattle against bovine tuberculosis – admitted that a cattle vaccine would not be a cure-all, but did say that it: "…has potential benefits to reduce prevalence, incidence and spread of bTB in the cattle population" (63). Recent research into the efficacy of a cattle vaccine against bTB in trials in Ethiopia and Mexico have demonstrated the protective effect between 56 per cent and 68 per cent (101). It should also not be forgotten that although cattle have a natural lifespan of approximately 25 years they are killed much earlier than that (for beef at 1-2.5 years and dairy at 5-10 years). This means that a cattle vaccine would have a positive cumulative effect over a relatively short period of time.

A cattle vaccine would be a sensible approach, as bTB is a cattle disease and cattle remain by far and away the largest vector (or carrier), for the disease. Surprisingly, there appears to be little support within the farming lobby for a cattle vaccine – probably because it may inconvenience them financially. As the situation stands, the EU would not accept milk from cattle that have been vaccinated. Also, a vaccinated cow is indistinguishable from a cow with bTB when tested, so it would stop the trade in live cattle under current rules. However, in parallel with developing bTB vaccines, AHVLA (Animal Health and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency) is currently developing a test to differentiate infected from vaccinated animals (the so-called DIVA test). This test, based on the gamma interferon blood test, can be used alongside the tuberculin skin test in vaccinated animals to confirm whether a skin test positive result is caused by vaccination or bTB infection (102).

However, despite the positive moves towards a workable cattle vaccine in the UK, EU legislation would need to be changed to allow it to be used in this country. Although Defra claims to be working towards this, publically there appears to be little momentum – and the farming unions are clearly fixated on badgers.

Presumably, Britain could implement cattle vaccination unilaterally, but it would mean that trade to the EU would be limited for milk and live exports. However, it is also worth noting that Defra’s current testing regime costs around £90 million a year – yet the live export trade has never been worth more that £3.3 million since the lifting of the BSE export ban in 1998 (87).

Further limits on cattle movements, tighter on-farm biosecurity and improved testing would also curb the spread of bTB.

Approaches abroad

The insistence on targeting wildlife is based on other eradication programmes overseas. This includes New Zealand, where the non-native Australian possum has been blamed for the spread of bTB – although only two per cent of New Zealand possums have the disease (52).

New Zealand controversially uses poisons including the indiscriminate 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate), which is fatal to most animal life and is dropped from helicopters into areas of high bTB prevalence. This practice has been widely criticised by those living in these areas, as well as the tourism sector which feels that it is being ignored in favour of the dairy and beef industries (53). Once an area has been decimated of possums, it is put into 'maintenance mode' – meaning that less than 30 per cent of the numbers of the original population remain. Even then, the Government there has admitted that very few areas are now bTB-free (54).

It is dangerous to model any eradication scheme on what has been done in other countries. It is stated that cattle have a tendency to lick sick possums (55), but there is no evidence that such contact happens between badger and cattle in the UK. The scorched earth policy in New Zealand, if repeated here, would mean that badgers would be wiped out in large areas – and this imbalance would have to be maintained in the long term. In essence, the UK has a choice between removing indigenous wild animals almost completely, or tackling the livestock industry which is at the heart of the problem. The final irony is that New Zealand is moving away from 'culling' and moving towards vaccination of wildlife – just at a time when England is moving in the opposite direction.

The Republic of Ireland has virtually eliminated badgers in most cattle farming areas yet the number of herds infected is still twice as high as in Britain (28).

bTB Fraud: A Dirty Business

A 2009 report by Northern Ireland Audit Office also made clear the suspicion that there might be widespread fraud for claims for bTB compensation (62). With compensation at sometimes 100 per cent the market value, it raises the question whether cattle herds might purposefully be put in contact with bTB for considerable financial returns. In fact the report stated that, "... the inherent risk of fraudulent claims is clearly very high".

This raises the question of whether fraud takes place elsewhere, including elsewhere in the UK. In other words, it raises a potential concern that cattle may be deliberately infected for compensation. This suspicion was given credence in 2011 when it emerged that some British farmers had been illegally swapping cattle eartags in order to retain highly productive bTB reactors (77).

The evidence, gathered during a regional slaughterhouse survey undertaken by Gloucestershire Trading Standards, was so damning that it spurred Defra Jim Paice into urgent action so that DNA tags will be inserted in the ear of cattle that test positive for bTB at the time of the test. Additional investigations are now taking place in other counties, and the problem could be widespread. The British Veterinary Association admitted that “[it put] … the national bTB eradication strategies at risk”. It also poses the question of how a badger ‘cull’ can be justified in light of this wholesale failure of the industry to manage itself.

Cattle Movements and testing

In 1990, there were 173 recorded outbreaks of bTB in cattle herds but by 2007, that had increased to 2,229 with 27,598 individual cattle slaughtered (3). This followed the rapid re-stocking of farms after the 2001 foot and mouth disease (FMD) epidemic. Under EU regulations cattle must be routinely tested for bTB, with infected animals slaughtered and movement restrictions placed on the farms. During the 2001 FMD outbreak, most bTB testing was suspended and in breach of EU regulations, Defra failed to impose movement restrictions on those herds not tested (10).

Despite several highly-contagious diseases among UK cattle, 40 per cent of all British cattle are moved annually; with over 13 million cattle movements take place every year as farmers buy and sell stock. Closely mirroring the historical rise in bTB cases is the rise in cattle movements, with 480,294 more cattle moved in 2010 than 2009 (39). Cattle movements have more than quadrupled between 1999 (3,373,646) and 2010 (13,690,294) and have involved over 127 million animals since 1998 (39) (101).

The ISG report also made clear that present methods of control – surveillance, testing and slaughter – are not working. The evidence shows that tests are highly inaccurate, missing around one third of all infected animals, leaving them to re-infect other cattle (35). The report went on to say that better farming practices and not 'culling' were likely to reverse the increase in bTB (25). Even former Defra Minister, Ben Bradshaw, highlighted the near irrelevance of badger slaughter by admitting that 80 per cent of bTB outbreaks are caused by cattle (11).

Using Defra figures for 2009 a report by Rethink TB showed just how badly things were going wrong and how the ‘skin test’ was compromised by shortcomings. Their analysis showed that 1 in 5 cattle were incorrectly identified as being reactors when they were in fact free of the disease (and so were killed and compensation paid to the farmer) (it was 1 in 6 in Wales and a staggering 2 out of every 3 in Scotland). Even more worryingly, the ‘skin test’ missed 1 in 5 reactors (leaving them free to infect other cattle) (103).

Movement of cattle in the periods between routine herd bTB tests has long been recognised as a cause of new infections, even in relatively disease-free areas. Unbelievably, animals taken to agricultural shows do not have to be pre-tested. Mixing animals from many different areas has the potential to spread bTB easily among them and then back to their farms. In 2009, the final report on bTB by the Bovine TB Advisory Report highlighted this as a risk (56).

Bad biosecurity

As with any disease, all is takes is one host for it to spread. An infected animal at market could infect others and spread the infection exponentially to other herds and farms. Whilst bTB is often spread via breath-to-breath contact between an infected animal and a non-infected one, bad biosecurity also plays a role in spreading bTB.

Infected material can be spread from farm-to-farm with alarming ease if biosecurity measures are relaxed (or not observed at all). A risk may be small, but all it takes is one spark to set the whole herd ablaze with bTB.

Compensation payouts to farmers are the same for those that employ good biosecurity as to those who do not. In other words there is little incentive – and without making it a legal requirement to undertake certain biosecurity measures many farmers will simply not do so. Hence the vicious cycle of bTB infection in cattle – and once again the fault lays with farmers, weak Government and legal loopholes not badgers.

Defra and the NFU currently offers this non-mandatory advice to farmers: “Cleansing and disinfection (C&D) is an important disease control measure and may help reduce the risk of infection spreading to other cattle or to other susceptible animals on your farm. Under certain conditions, M. bovis can survive in the environment for a long time, so it is good practice, and will be a requirement under notice, served by Animal Health, to cleanse and disinfect thoroughly all buildings where reactor cattle have been kept. It is particularly important to clean and disinfect any fittings or equipment that may have come into contact with sputum, faeces or milk from TB reactors.” (88)

The bTB bacterium may only be infectious on pasture for a few days (but potentially more depending on the weather) it can remain infectious in cattle faeces for up to 8 weeks (89). It can remain infectious in soil for over 12 weeks (90). Incredibly, it is not illegal to spread slurry from cows that are under movement restrictions on a farmer’s own land. Indeed, Defra merely tells farmers that they: “… should consider the risk of spreading the disease to other stock or wildlife”. This means that slurry containing bTB bacterium could become a vector for spreading the disease not only to badgers but other cattle. Research from Northern Ireland has suggested that excrement could aerosolise (i.e become dust particles) which could be breathed in by animals and further facilitate bTB spread (91). Slurry can also run off into waterways – and the bTB bacterium can remain active in water for up to 58 days (88) – meaning that cross contamination to neighbouring herds and wildlife could be a potential vector.

Also, what better way of churning up infected soil and acting as a giant muck-spreader than 20 horses and 40 dogs crossing large swathes of land? In January 2012, Viva! identified hunting with dogs as a potential vector for the spread of bTB following grudging admittance that it could be by Wales’ Chief vet Christianne Glossop. Even though hunting foxes with hounds has ostensibly been banned, there are still around 172 trail and drag hunts across England and Wales. The areas with more hunting (the South and Southwest of England and Wales) also have the highest incidence of bTB. Coincidence? Hunting was banned during the Foot and Mouth crisis in 2000-2001, but the Government has admitted that it has not even considered it as a vector this time – and has failed to answer questions about what controls are in place to prevent hunts from crossing areas that are under restriction. In other words there may be none. Read more on the potential link between hunting and the spread of bTB.

Lax biosecurity at markets was also highlighted by an investigation by Viva! at three cattle markets in Wales in 2011. Despite the danger of spreading bTB via footwear only 3 per cent of visitors to one market dipped their feet in the provided disinfectant foot dip, despite having to walk across animal run areas that would have undoubtedly been awash with urine and faeces. Unbelievably, our concerns were dismissed by the authorities because there was not the legal framework to ensure that visitors observed good biosecurity because the law had been relaxed in 2010 to remove red tape for farmers. Quite how spending two seconds to dip feet is considered cumbersome is anyone’s guess. You can read more and watch our damning footage at www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/badgers/biosecurity.html

The Cost

The farming lobby has long decried the financial costs of the bTB epidemic, yet they are compensated for every animal that is slaughtered – up to £1,924 for dairy cows and up to £3,755 for beef cattle (32). There is also growing evidence that a 'cull' of badgers – quite apart from the welfare implications and futility of its aims – would be difficult to conduct and could cost more than triple the supposed savings to the industry. In other words, it would be a colossal waste of money.

The assertion that better biosecurity on farms would be a more cost-effective way of tackling bTB was born out by experiments undertaken by The Central Science Laboratory in York between 2005 and 2009. They concluded that, on average, a farmer could keep badgers apart from cattle with better biosecurity for just over £4,000 (compared to the average herd breakdown of around £30,000). (101)

In 2007, Defra research concluded that "... no method of badger culling gave a certainty, or even a high probability, of a net economic benefit over 15 years" – this despite simulating 'culling' in areas up to 400km2.

A 2010 survey by Imperial College London and the Zoological Society of London found managing badger populations to stop them spreading bTB to cattle cost more than the impact of the disease (43). Professor Christl Donnelly, senior author of the study from the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling at Imperial College London, said any supposed benefits of 'culling' vanished after four years – and the cost of 'culling' badgers was up to three times as much as the potential savings to the industry (59). She went on to say: "I would suggest people seriously consider badger vaccination over a long period". Lord Krebs, who initiated the original badger trials, also expressed similar opinions on the cost-effectiveness – or lack of – of badger 'culling' (41).

The coalition government has now side-stepped the issue by pushing the cost onto English farmers themselves. Despite this, there are likely to be considerable costs that will be picked up by the tax payer, including policing (at least £500,000 per year per area) and increased compensation to farmers by initial herd breakdowns caused by the perturbation effect once the ‘culling’ of badgers gets under way (101). Previous plans in Wales estimated the cost of ‘culling’ to be at least £10 million. This was with a projected 'cull' number of 1,500 over five years; which translates to costing a staggering £6,666 per badger.

In 2010, Paul and David Torgerson argued in the journal Trends in Microbiology that bTB is a negligible health risk to humans in the UK, providing that milk is pasteurised – the process which cut infection in humans drastically since the height of infection in the 1930s (58). They said that cow to human infection was extremely rare. Therefore, they said that the cost of a bTB eradication programme in the UK was of no benefit to society and was a huge waste of money. Indeed, they even argued that eradication showed little evidence of a positive cost benefit to the livestock industry. They also pointed out that few studies have been undertaken on the direct costs of bTB to animal production.

A rarely talked about cost would be that to tourism is areas where badgers are being hunted and killed. Tourism to the South West is worth over three times as much as the dairy industry is to the whole of the UK economy (see Viva! media release for more details). A dip in tourism to these areas is almost inevitable should badger ‘culling’ start, but this cost has not been acknowledged by the Government.

The bottom line is that vaccinating badgers would be cheaper and much more effective.

In March 2012, The Conservative think tank the Bow Group published a report calling on the coalition to abandon plans to ‘cull’ badgers in favour of vaccination. The report’s findings show that ‘culling’ had associated costs of an average of £51 per hectare, whereas vaccination alone would cost around £34 per hectare. It also found that 81 per cent of the public were against badger ‘culling’.

Cattle Husbandry

The demand for badgers to be killed has diverted attention away from the many serious health problems faced by intensively-reared cattle –pneumonia, E. coli, coccidiosis (fatal diarrhoea), salmonella and mastitis. They are all increasing and are attributed to 'poor nutrition', 'poor management' and 'poor welfare' by the Government's 1997 Animal Health Report (12). Similar considerations must apply to the spread of bTB.

Disease does not solely result from contact with a pathogen but also from an animal's inability to combat that pathogen. Stress reduces the body's ability to fight disease and intensive farming produces animals who are physically and mentally stressed – none more so than the modern dairy cow (65).

High stocking densities increase stress, as do high milk yields and both have increased dramatically over the last 30 years. Milk yield has gone up from an average of 3,700 litres annually to 8-10,000 in the modern, high-yield Holstein (16). Forced to give birth to a calf every year in order to keep this enormous milk supply going, dairy cows spend seven months out of every year simultaneously pregnant and producing large quantities of milk.

This crushing double burden results in a quarter of the national dairy herd being killed every year – physically exhausted at only four to five years old when they could naturally live to be at least 20 (17). On top of this immense physical stress, dairy cows also suffer the repeated emotional trauma of having their newborn calves torn away from them within 48 hours of birth. An unbearable anguish that would take its toll on any mother.

Although dairy cows graze outdoors from April to October, for the remaining six months of the year they are confined in indoor cubicles (18). The overcrowded, unsanitary conditions and high humidity lead to high levels of lameness and mastitis. It is also an ideal environment for transmission of bTB, the Irish bTB study confirms this (15).

Cows who once grazed mainly on grass are now also fed concentrated, high-protein feeds such as soya and maize to increase their milk yields, typically forming 30-50 per cent of their diet. This seems to affect their health as grain-fed cattle can have 100 times more E. coli 0157:H7 in their gut, for example (19). This, combined with a fall in the nutritional quality of animal feed, appears to have reduced their ability to fight disease. The lack of genetic diversity in modern farmed animals also plays a part (12). Also grazing has its problems as the common practice of slurry spreading can represent a potential source of bTB (15, 22).

Badger ‘culling’: a recent history

In 1998, the Independent Scientific Group on bTB (ISG) was formed after a report by Sir John Krebs (Oxford University) which claimed there may be a case for badger 'culling'. However, Krebs was clearly not sold on the idea even then, as he said in his 1997 report that: "The best prospect for control of TB in the British herd is to develop a cattle vaccine" (48). The ISG's investigation included the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), costing £34 million and taking 12,000 badgers' lives (24). The report was published in 2007 (25) and ISG chairman, Professor John Bourne (Animal Health, University of Bristol), reported that: "badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the control of bTB in Britain".

The report also found that 'culling' would increase the spread of the disease as surviving badgers would wander outside their normal range after their social group had been destroyed. bTB infections in cattle increased by 27 per cent after the 'cull' in areas where badgers were the main suspects (27). This finding has continued to be supported by the research done into badger behaviour at the Government's badger research centre near Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, where tracking and testing of badgers has continued since the mid-1970s. The head researcher there is adamant ‘culling’ badgers will make bTB worse and that farmers need to start backing the vaccination programme (67).

At the time, the Government's Agriculture Committee believed that cattle movements and husbandry played a much greater role in the spread of the disease than infected wildlife (7, 8). The ISG also identified herd size and cattle movements as having "particular relevance" and that cattle-to-cattle transmission was the "main cause of disease spread to new areas" (25). Average herd size has more than doubled to 107 since bTB was at its lowest in the 1970s and the ISG recognised that infections increase with larger herds (25).

The same year, Bourne's categorical findings were challenged by the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, who rushed out his own report within months, urging a 'cull' (41). The King report was smaller, had fewer experts – and only met for a single day. Bourne and Nature, a leading science journal, heavily criticised the King report as "hastily written", "superficial", riddled with "small mistakes" and appeared to have been "written to please the farmers" (26). The result is that it gave the Government an excuse to instigate a 'cull' should they want to appease farmers who still clamoured for one.

Lords Krebs, who founded the original badger 'cull' trials, was also highly critical of the King report. He has stated that simple measures such as improved cattle testing and keeping badgers and cattle apart would cost less than a 'cull' and are "as likely to work". He also expressed concern that a badger 'cull' across the UK could kill at least 170,000 animals – more than half the UK population (41).

In July 2008, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced that licences would not be issued for killing badgers in England, as he believed that 'culling' could make the situation worse. However, in Wales, the intention to kill badgers was announced in April 2008. Wales' chief vet, Dr Christianne Glossop, admitted that badgers could be wiped out in certain parts of Wales and a wider 'cull' could last into the 2030s (36). The move was denounced by Viva! and many other groups, including The National Trust, Save the Badger and The Badger Trust, as a blatant move to appease farmers. Partly because of campaigning by groups such as Viva! the decision where to hold any trial 'cull' was delayed until early 2009. However, the Welsh Assembly subsequently announced that a trial 'cull' was to take place in north Pembrokeshire and neighbouring parts of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, with the killing then due to start in early summer 2010. The Badger Trust tried to get a Judicial Review to look at the legality of the 'cull', but that was refused in April 2010. However, in July 2010, the Appeal Court ruled to squash the Welsh Assembly's plans to 'cull' badgers in Wales.

At the time, Assembly officials in Wales said the intention was to reduce the badger population "as far as we can" during 'culls' over the next five years (42). The proposals also included extra stringent cattle controls. However, it was clear that there would be no way to determine the success, or otherwise, of either approach. This meant that a reduction in bTB could have been attributed to falling badger numbers, whereas stricter cattle control methods would, undoubtedly, be the real reason for a reduction. The fear was that this scattershot approach would have been used to skew figures and push for a wider 'cull' across the rest of Wales.

This was backed up in February 2010, when ex-senior scientific adviser to the UK Government, Dr Chris Cheeseman, called the 'cull' in Wales "perverse", and said the decision "flies in the face of the science" (44). bTB figures for Wales revealed a steep decline in 2010, with almost 200 fewer herd incidents and a 45 per cent decline in cattle slaughtered. Despite this – and the public consultation that showed the overwhelming amount of the public were against such a move, the Welsh Assembly introduced new plans to ‘cull’ badgers in the same area, and voted to ratify these plans in March 2011 (74). Plans were eventually dropped in favour of vaccination in March 2012.

In England, the threat of a badger 'cull' returned with the election of a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in May 2010. Both parties backed 'culling' badgers as part of their manifestos, despite the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, previously opposing a 'cull'. He said in 2008, "The bias and evidence of that ten-year review was badger culls simply move the problem to other areas". He added, "Secondly, Defra just doesn't have the money to do it. We can't move forward in the absence of clearer evidence and in the absence of better resources for Defra." (45) Clegg has not explained his U-turn.

In May 2010, confusion seemed to reign within the coalition, as the new Defra secretary, Caroline Spelman, ruled out an immediate 'cull', saying that she needed time to examine the science and wanted to observe the results of the Welsh trial – even though that was due to last for five years. The next day, Defra farm minister, Jim Paice, announced that a 'cull' would take place as soon as bTB hot-spots had been identified and revealed that the Conservatives have spent the last year of opposition planning for this eventuality (47).

Late in May 2010, updated data from Imperial College London appeared to show that 'culling' could reduce bTB incidences in cattle. What was under-reported was that this was an apparent anomaly and the scientists behind this research still held firm to the findings of the ISG report that 'culling' of badgers could not meaningfully reduce the disease in badgers (68).

Summary

Despite science and common sense prevailing in Wales (and also in Northern Ireland for the time being), badgers are still under threat in England – and the clock is ticking. As this report shows, the science does not stack up. It is clear that politicians are willing to kill British wildlife for self-serving reasons (i.e. bowing to core interests) and that many farmers are so fixated on badgers that they refuse to see that bTB is a mess of their own making.

The ‘culling’ of badgers is morally, financially and scientifically bankrupt. Vaccination of cattle and badgers is the medium term answer, but we must also look at the negative impact modern agriculture has on animals – both farmed and wild.

The bottom line is that British wildlife would not have been infected with bTB in the first place had it not have been infected by mass cattle movements, appalling biosecurity and a Government that refuses to challenge farmers and take them to task over their failures. In other words, wildlife would not be under threat of annihilation were it not for the milk and beef industries.

The Vegan Solution

If, like us, you are outraged by this scapegoating of badgers as a cover for cruel, incompetent and unsustainable farming practises, there is one blindingly obvious solution – reject meat, milk and other dairy products and switch to a vegan diet.

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Further reading: The Great Badger and Bovine TB Debate.