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NONSENSE IN THE NEWS

BADGER TRUST
16 January 2012

The Rt Hon. David Cameron, the Prime Minister said on BBC Countryfile [1]: “When you’ve got all this evidence that culling should be part of a balanced packet of measures do you just sweep it under the carpet and announce a further review or do you get on and make this work . . .”

 

The only source of evidence the Government itself has acknowledged [2] to be a rigorous scientific trial is that from the £50 million Randomised Badger Culling Trial of 1998 – 2006 [3]. It points the finger firmly at the need for cattle-based measures.

The ISG chairman’s letter to the Secretary of State, June 2007 said: “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. Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone”.

A subsequent report of a Coalition Government review of the scientific evidence in April 2011 [4] said, in précis, that the more that a future culling policy deviated from the conditions of the RBCT (and the proposed free shooting of badgers is an important example of deviation) the more results would differ one way or the other and if not coordinated, sustained and simultaneous could mean a smaller benefit or even be detrimental. The minimum criteria are: covering at least 70% of the land within the culled area, and an area of 150 sq km (eight miles by eight). Also, the average net benefit over nine years would be smaller, at about 3-22%, with a central figure of 12.4% or in some cases 16 per cent

 

Mr Cameron also said: “In the end the aim is healthy cattle and healthy badgers. The last Government just put it off and put it off for too long”.

In fact the last government only put it off once – it killed off the proposal because of the scientific evidence. The trial cull announced by Caroline Spelman in December [5] would be non-selective. Almost 90 per cent of the badgers killed would not be infected, and as the ISG pointed out, the prevalence of disease after culling in the remaining badgers is higher not lower [3, para 5.45].

NOTES

[1] BBC-1 January 15, 2012.

[2] http://archive.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/tb-control-measures/100915-tb-control-measures-condoc.pdf (para 68).

[3] http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/isg/report/final_report.pdf (p5, and paras 8 -10).

[4] http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/documents/bovinetb-scientificexperts-110404.pdf (paras 3 – 5)

[5] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111214/debtext/111214-0001.htm (Dec 14, Col 795).

Jack Reedy
BADGER TRUST 

 

 

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