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Badger Trust: Lettter to Farmers Guardian

BADGER TRUST

15 August 2011

David Bainbridge has completely misunderstood badger perturbation as described in the final report on the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) if that is the document he refers to as the “Krebs trial”. The danger is not of badgers leaving culled areas, but of others moving in from adjacent ones and joining unculled survivors. The risk then is of increasing the proportion of infected badgers. The relevant paragraph is:

“4.48 These patterns [of territorial social groups] were profoundly disrupted by culling, however. Proactive culling substantially reduced badger population density, both on culled land and on nearby land that was either inaccessible for culling or outside the culling area. This density reduction was associated with disruption of badgers’ territorial system: badgers ranged more widely, and substantial numbers immigrated into the culled areas from neighbouring lands. Probably as a result of this perturbation, M. bovis prevalence in badgers rose substantially in response to culling, and infection became more diffuse across the landscape. Reactive culling caused smaller reductions in density, but seems to have had similar consequences for M. bovis prevalence”.

The RBCT report adds¸ at paragraph 10.28 on page 168: “A reduction in detrimental effects [i.e. perturbation] was observed following the suspension of reactive culling, probably because re-establishment of a stable badger spatial organisation slowed disease spread”.

The perturbation effect was only unforeseen because earlier studies such as the Thornbury study (not experiment) which Mr Bainbridge quotes approvingly, had failed to reveal the danger. The RBCT report discusses Thornbury and others in detail from paragraph 5.76 on page 114. The studies’ conclusions are by no means straightforward and should be read in the context of the Coalition Government’s own consultation document of last year which said in paragraph 68 on page 25: “The RBCT is the only one of these [‘different policies’] that was conducted as a rigorous scientific trial”. But the Coalition goes on to blur this plain, and true, statement by harking back to the very policies, such as Thornbury, it had dismissed: “There is, however, some evidence to suggest that culling policies involving complete or near complete removal of badgers from an area appear to be more effective at reducing cattle herd breakdowns”.

“Appear”?

If true, that would hardly be a justification for killing off protected wild animals for at best a marginal gain sometime in the future - perhaps.

Another fundamental error in the letter was the claim that 70 per cent of infected badgers were slaughtered in the “Krebs trial”, presumably the RBCT. If so, healthy as well as (some) infected badgers were killed for the simple reason that it is quite impossible to know whether a badger is infected or not until it has been killed - despite the preposterous claims of some self-appointed experts that they could tell at glance. In fact only 11% of badgers killed were found to be infected.

Repeated misinterpretation and misquotation of important scientific documents does nothing to foster understanding of complex evidence and even less to help towards a successful outcome for afflicted farm businesses.

David Williams,
Chairman,
Badger Trust

 

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