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A brief history of Bovine TB and badger culling in the United Kingdom

TIVERTON PEOPLE

14 March 2011 by Lewis_Clarke

CATTLE farmers have always faced the prospect that their herds could one day be infected by bovine tuberculosis. Recent proposals to try and curb the disease with a badger cull aren’t the first time measures have been taken.

In the past thirty years, the disease has spread from isolated pockets to covering large areas of the West and South-West of England and Wales. At the end of 2009 6.4% of herds in England were under bovine TB restriction and in the South-West as high as 14.3%.

For over a century the government have been trying to prevent the rise of bovine TB.

Interest in the control of TB in cattle in the UK began shortly after Robert Koch’s characterisation of the ‘TB bacillus’ in 1882 followed by his development of the first tuberculin in 1890, which was initially tried as a vaccine but show to have more diagnostic potential.

Around this time, 2,500 people died every year from drinking contaminated milk and there were 50,000 new cases of it in the human population. Initial control to prevent this came in the form examining cattle herds and their milk with the voluntary slaughter of any infected cows.

During the 1930s in Great Britain a large proportion of cattle herds were found to be infected with Mycobacterium bovis – or M. bovis for short – which is the bacteria that causes bovine TB. In 1935 a voluntary nationwide testing programme for cattle hers was introduced with a test-and-slaughter programme for cattle becoming compulsory in the 1950s.

During these years, bovine TB was a serious problem throughout the UK. Over 60% of cattle herds were infected. Through compulsory TB testing of cattle, the incidence of bovine TB in cattle was practicably eradicated down to a level of less than 1%.

By 1960, the disease was confined to a few pockets in the South West of England, and remained manageable.

In 1971 a dead badger was found on a Gloucestershire farm which had died of advanced bovine TB. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food decided TV was so well established in badgers that steps should be taken against them where they were seen to be a threat to cattle.

The Badger Act of 1973 made it illegal to kill badgers, but allowed farmers to apply for a license to be able to kill them. One of the preferred ways of killing badgers was by gassing them until a review by Lord Zuckerman case doubts on the humaneness of this method as badgers did not die immediately underground.

In the 1980s badgers were identified as carriers of the M. bovis bacteria, and instances of the disease started to rise.

After the Dunnet Report of 1986, which implicated badgers in the TB outbreaks in the South-West of England, the Badger Trust was founded when 19 local badger groups decided to form together and provide an effective and co-ordinated response to issues of concern.

Further protection to badgers came in the 1992 Badger Act which made it an offence to kill, injure, or take a badger from the wild. It also made it illegal to cruelly treat any badger, dig for badgers and use badger tongs in an attempt to kill or take a badger from the wild.

Moving forward to 1996, a review was commissioned by the Government to investigate the link between TB in cattle and badgers. The review was chaired by Professor, now Lord, Krebs.

The findings were revealed in 1997’s Krebs Report and revealed findings that badgers can help spread the disease to cattle.

Since then there have been intensifying arguments between conservationists who want to protect the badger, and farmers who want to see badgers culled to avoid livestock losses.

In light of the findings the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) started a Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) in the areas of England with the highest rates of TB in cattle.

Costing £50million and taking ten years to complete, 11,000 badgers were trapped in cages and shot.

It was carried out in 30 areas of 100km2. The 30 areas were grouped into 10 sets of three. In one area badgers were killed every year (proactive culling), and in one area the badgers were killed, on and near farms with a recent outbreak of TB in cattle (reactive culling).

There was no killing, just surveying in the third, scientific control, area.

Ministers stopped the reactive culling in November 2003 because it caused around a 20% increase in cattle TB incidence. This was due to the perturbation effect where unsettled neighbouring badgers move into a vacant territory left behind where a culling has taken place, this can help spread the disease onto nearby farms.

It took four years of killing badgers before there was an overall drop in cattle TB.

The report also found evidence that cattle can transmit cattle TB to badgers.

Four years after the badger culling trial had began, 2001 saw one of the biggest challenges facing not just farming, but the UK as a whole. The foot-and-mouth outbreak prevented routine testing of bovine TB and infected cattle were not able to identified and removed.

This led to a rise in bovine TB and the amount of badgers with infected with the disease, and after the foot-and-mouth outbreak calmed down, culling and testing resumed.

A badger TB vaccine trial was launched in 2005, but the National Farmers Union still called for a cull. At the time, farming Minister Ben Bradshaw announced a three-year vaccine field study which was the first of its kind in the country.

In 2006, Dr Rosie Woodroffe, a scientist advising the then Labour government advised that culling badgers should be a low priority for curbing cattle tuberculosis suggesting that culling raised the rate of TB in badgers.

When the Randomised Badger Culling Trial ended ten years after it began in 1997, two key conclusions were reached. Firstly, that though badgers were a source of cattle TB, badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control.

It also found that weaknesses in cattle testing regimes mean that cattle themselves contribute significantly to the persistence and spread of the disease in all areas where TB occurs.

Secretary of State for the Environment Hilary Benn announced in 2008 that a wholesale cull of badgers was not going to be part of the government’s new package of measures to try to control TB in cattle, and the Bovine TB Partnership Group was set up to focus on other measure to control the disease with vaccination high on the list.

However, in 2010, the Labour government, who were keen on vaccinations rather than culling badgers, was replaced by a coalition led by the Conservatives. In their manifesto they promised a ‘carefully-managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas with high and persistent levels of bovine TB.’

In September 2010 DEFRA’s consultation document claimed that bovine TB was one of the biggest challenges facing the cattle industry. In the past twenty five years the incidence rate in England and Wales has been rising and other disasters such as 2001’s foot and mouth outbreak have only made matters worse.

At the end of 2009 14.3% of herds in the South West of England were infected, the highest in the country. Bovine TB cost the taxpayer £63million and over 25,000 cattle were slaughtered for bovine TB control.

Today wildlife loves and farmers await a decision from DEFRA about how they plan to proceed with eradicating bovine TB. Final preparations are being taken and a statement is due in May. The long term goal is to eradicate the disease in cattle, but it DEFRA admit it is likely to take several decades.

The ongoing plight of the country to try and solve bovine tuberculosis, and the debate on badger culling will continue for many years to come.

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