Why is badger culling bad

Taking an apex predator out of the ecosystem can adversely impact other species. Natural England accepts that badger culling may lead to an increase in foxes and a consequent possible decrease in prey species. Their advice to mitigate this risk includes culling foxes.

Given uncertainty over badger population figures, it is feared some areas may face local extinction. Badgers are bio-engineers, distributing seed, eg. This same trial concluded that only 5. So, kill every badger in the country and you would still have bTB in cattle.

No scientific conclusions can be drawn from the subsequent so-called pilot culls due to the Government repeatedly changing target numbers, methods and cattle-based measures. A ZSL study published in October confirmed that culling badgers disrupts their normal behaviour and could in fact lead to an increase in bTB transmission from the remaining infected animals.

So around 57, healthy badgers were killed from to for no reason. These same badgers could be culled if they stray off protected land. It offers false hope and distracts from resolving the real cause of bTB. There are people who are really committed to wildlife conservation. That refers to maintaining the health of the most biodiverse habitats possible. And then there are animal rights advocates, who believe that every animal is ethically considerable and should have the right to live.

I think these two camps sometimes overlap in that wildlife conservationists want to find the most humane ways of managing ecosystems, but believe that the genie is out of the bottle—we live in an artificial set of habitats that must be managed or we will lose biodiversity. And then there are the animal rights people who say we'll deal with that as we come to it, but we have to find a way to make room for every animal to fit into the ark.

That's really not my perspective. If wildlife managers don't cull, then nature culls, and we will see animals starving [and] habitat types that used to be vibrant and beautiful consisting of highly reduced numbers of species. That's the specter that frightens wildlife conservationists, whereas I think those with the animal rights perspective feel that, ethically, we lose our souls if we cannot respect the divine spark in every individual animal.

The sad thing is I think both sides really love nature. But they have a very different view of looking at the future of nature on a planet that is overpopulated by humans. All rights reserved. Wildlife culls have been in the news a lot lately. Is this a new practice? Share Tweet Email. Read This Next Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London.

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Science Coronavirus Coverage U. Travel A road trip in Burgundy reveals far more than fine wine. Of course we shouldn't have got to this point. Bovine TB is hardly a new disease and farmers were promised a vaccine against the disease more than 20 years ago. However, at the moment the only badger vaccine available is in an injectable form.

This means that you need to cage trap the badgers to vaccinate them which is practically very challenging and has to be done annually for a period of at least five years. There is currently no vaccine available for cattle nor an approved test that can distinguish between a vaccinated and an infected animal. So in order to tackle this disease, we must reduce the reservoir of bTB in the wildlife. The proposed cull pilots due to take place this autumn are targeting two specific hotspot areas in the South West where the incidence of TB in wildlife is persistent and high; with the possibility of further culls in other hotspot areas in the coming years.

Most of England is TB free and there are no plans to carry out culls of badgers in areas where there is no TB. For those still in any doubt, this TB policy has been through two rigorous public consultations. It has also been upheld after challenges in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The policy is backed by scientists, vets and government who all agree that this is the best way of controlling the spread of this awful disease throughout the country.

At the end of the day, we all want the same outcome: healthy cattle, healthy badgers and healthy countryside. My personal view, and that of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and the Wildlife Trusts, is that badger culling is not scientifically proven. It is an extremely difficult approach to tackling the disease and we don't feel that it is appropriate that it is effectively being portrayed as an essential part of bringing bovine TB under control.

The Wildlife Trusts don't support it. Biosecurity is absolutely key, and that is biosecurity in terms of the way that individual cattle and herds are managed and the separation of badgers from livestock, where there are substantial areas that could be improved. One-off capital investment can keep badgers away from livestock when they are being housed and I think that has to be something that is pursued more vigorously.

However, the research shows that vaccinating badgers does substantially appear to boost their immunity to bovine TB, which is a very good thing. All the reasons given are cost and difficulty. And yet it's being written off as inappropriate, the secretary of state is saying that it's not appropriate, that it is expensive, and I just think it is daft.

If it was a human disease and there was a vaccine like that I very much doubt that people would say that we shouldn't be using it. We must remember that farming is an industry even though it is a very personal industry. What industry would choose to take action against Britain's most iconic mammal, the one mammal that most members of the public would identify? If the badger cull goes ahead I think the farming industry will continue to receive very bad press which is one thing it absolutely can't afford.

And it is not just about the fact that individual badgers will be killed, it is about this huge assault on part of the way that the countryside works, and I think that is what people have got very upset about - whose countryside is it? And this is where you get the real division between people who own the land and the people who live in it and I think that is what you're probably seeing through the e-petition - it is something really deep about our native wildlife.

TB is a disease with a long incubation period and is also slow and debilitating rather than lethal, which helps it to survive as an infection within populations, as an infected animal left to its own devices can spread disease for years to uninfected animals. As with most diseases the best way to rid a group of animals of the disease is to remove the source of infection carrier animals - infected animals and protect uninfected animals from future infection.