24th October 2012
The Ministerial statement in the Commons about the postponement of badger culling in West Somerset and West Gloucestershire and the subsequent discussion contained a series of oft-repeated half-truths about bovine tuberculosis (bTB).
In advance of the six-hour debate tomorrow (Thursday October 25) the Badger Trust now repairs some of the omissions:
1. “The disease is out of control”
Fewer cattle have been slaughtered through bTB each year from 2008 to 2011 (last full-year figures). [1]
2. No other country in the world has successfully overcome bTB without tackling the reservoir of the disease in wildlife.
The UK did. We brought the total of cattle slaughtered down from 47,476 in 1938 to 628 in 1979without killing wildlife. If there was a “wildlife reservoir” then it could have had little effect – and such a reservoir could not have suddenly appeared when infection began to soar after 1990 [2].
3. The most recent follow up work of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) has shown a significantly reduced level of TB infection inside the control area . . .
Not “significantly” reduced. Lord Krebs, who originated the trial, said recently [3] that the benefit would be 16 per cent fewer breakdowns and take nine years to achieve after massive cost. It would be so slight that the average farmer – who would be paying the massive cost – would probably not notice the difference. He also said: ““The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle. The government is cherry-picking bits of data to support its case”.
4. The only available vaccine for badgers involves trapping and injecting each animal – something that is hugely expensive and very impractical.
It is no more expensive or impractical than trapping badgers to shoot them, but vaccination provides immunity for life and does not stir up badger populations. The proposed cheap method of shooting sufficient free running badgers is still untested.
5. Vaccination has no effect on animals that have already become infected which includes a significant proportion of the badger population in “hot spot” areas.
Wrong. The vaccine slows the progress and severity of the disease, reducing the risk of the animal becoming infectious. The proportion of badgers infected is not as he claims “significant”. It was one in nine in the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) – 1,100 out of 9,000 killed – wrong again. [4]
6. The number of new bTB cases has increased in recent months, with the latest Defra stats showing a 6.3% increase in the number of new TB incidents in January – March 2011 compared to the same period in 2010.
These figures are out of date and represent a flagrant piece of cherry picking. A “case” is not defined – it could be an affected herd or an individual infected animal, for which a farmer would be compensated.
The full story is this: the latest official provisional incidence rate (herds) for July THIS YEAR is 5.2%, compared to 6.0% in July 2011.
The number of new herd incidents during January to July 2012 was 3,018 compared to 3,021 for January to July 2011 – virtually the same.
The number of cattle compulsorily slaughtered was 21,512 in January to July 2012, compared to 20,514 in January to July 2011.
However, the number of tests on officially TB free herds went up by 19 per cent in the same period (45,443 in 2012, to 38,051 in 2011, an increase of 7,392). Perhaps as a consequence 21,512 cattle were slaughtered (and compensated for) in all herds in the same period in 2012 against 20,514 in 2011 – a rise of only 4.8%. [5]
7. The truth is that culls have been shown to work. The Irish Government has been conducting a badger control programme and it clearly indicates that over recent years the number of reactors has fallen by a third.
The official report on the £50 million Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) concluded: “The elimination of badgers from large tracts of the countryside [as in Ireland] would be politically unacceptable, and . . . badger welfare issues must be taken into account. After careful consideration of all the RBCT and other data presented in this report, including an economic assessment, we conclude that badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in Britain [6].
The Coalition’s own consultation document [7] said of the RBCT: “. . . it is not possible to compare the effectiveness of most of these different policies or compare any of them with the impact of not culling badgers at all, because they were not scientific trials. The RBCT is the only one of these that was conducted as a rigorous scientific trial.
NOTES
[1] Defra archive, TB statistics.
[2] W.D. Macrae. Zoological Society of London from Symp, Zool. Soc., Lond. No. 4, pp. 81-90 (April, 1961) and MAFF TB statistics.
[3] Radio 4, Farming Today, October 12th and Page One, The Observer October 14th.
[4] RBCT report: 1,132 (page 75, table 4.9) out of 8,910 (page 49, table 2.4) in proactive cull areas.http://archive.defra.gov.uk/
[5] http://www.defra.gov.uk/
[6] Page 14 http://archive.defra.gov.uk/
[7] “Bovine tuberculosis: The Government’s approach to tackling the disease and consultation on a badger control policy” –Sept 15th 2010, page 23.