Friday 10th August 2012
The Badger Trust has no connection with the newly-formed Badger Welfare Association (BWA), which is claiming it is able to identify setts where bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is present so that the occupants could be gassed.
In effect, this would be “reactive killing”, which extensive and expensive research published in 2007 proved does not work and could make matters worse [1] by causing the disease to spread among neighbouring farms. So serious is the risk associated with this aspect that research into it had to be abandoned.
The presence of disease in a sett is not proof that the animals inside are infected, let alone whether they are among the very small proportion that are infected enough (ie infectious) to pass on the disease.”(2)
The BWA has been set up by farmers in the West country and is campaigning for official recognition of the work of Okehampton farmer Bryan Hill. According to reports he claims to have acquired expertise in identifying which setts are occupied by TB-infected badgers and which are not. The group then proposes to pump in suffocating carbon monoxide gas, a method rejected by Defra and which the Badger Trust strongly opposes on humane grounds.
Unless this method is properly validated through the usual scientific review process including rigorous field trials licensed by Natural England, any application of it would be in clear breach of the Badger Protection Act of 1992, attracting fines of up to £5,000 and/or a six-month prison sentence per offence. Each badger gassed would be a separate offence. If any gassing or other killing can be proved to have taken place already, Badger Trust will take every action possible to secure the conviction of those responsible. In addition, a licence from Natural England would be required to interfere with the badgers or their habitats.
The keynote Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) which cost £50 million and reported in 2007 concluded: “First, while badgers are clearly a source of cattle TB, careful evaluation of our own and others’ data indicates that badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain. Indeed, some policies under consideration are likely to make matters worse rather than better. Second, weaknesses in cattle testing regimes mean that cattle themselves contribute significantly to the persistence and spread of disease in all areas where TB occurs, and in some parts of Britain are likely to be the main source of infection”[1].
Further studies have established that culling would only, after nine years, produce a marginal slowdown in the rate of new TB incidence of 12-16% [3] at most if the RBCT methodology were to be followed precisely. However the Coalition Government’s schemes do not follow it at all and the BWA’s scheme in is direct contradiction of its findings.
[1] Page 5 and Page 6, para 5 of http://archive.defra.gov.uk/
[2] ibid. 77 (para 4.25)
[3] Para 5 of http://archive.defra.gov.uk/