BovineTB strategy must include protection for badgers
Blaming badgers for spreading bTB puts them at risk of illegal persecution, but the government's disease strategy lacks measures to tackle this issue.
In 2013, Sky News exposed an illegal badger gassing ring involving 14 farms in southwest England. With the badger cull just getting underway that year, the farmers involved were convinced that killing the wild animals would help to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cows and had taken matters into their own hands.
The hideous revelation illustrated how government’s blaming badgers for spreading bTB could put them at risk of illegal persecution from landowners - many of whom were already looking for any excuse to eradicate them. Protect the Wild believes this attitude is widespread today and that the government's bTB strategy should contain measures to monitor and deter illegal persecution of badgers, which are entirely missing at present.
Persecution major problem in the UK
Badger persecution is a major problem in the UK. As the Wildlife and Countryside Link's (WCL) most recent wildlife crime report showed, crimes against badgers increased by 6% in 2023 - this, remember, after a decade which saw over 200,000 badgers killed ‘legally’ under licence. There were 636 reported badger crime incidents involving a variety of perpetrators across England and Wales that year, most of which occurred in England.
Badgers are persecuted in several different ways, from being shot, snared, or poisoned, to being used for badger baiting (being forced to fight with dogs). The majority of crimes involve the destruction or disturbance of their homes, known as sett interference, which is illegal under the Protection of Badgers Act. The WCL report highlighted that sett interference accounted for over 60% of all reported crimes in 2023.
Due to high levels of badger persecution the issue is one of several UK Wildlife Crime Priorities. To tackle the problem, a Badger Persecution Priority Delivery Group is in place, as is a UK-wide police operation called Operation Badger. These initiatives confront badger crime in various ways, such as through working to identify and prosecute perpetrators and developing courses to assist with investigations of crime.
Illegal persecution by farmers
The perpetrators of badger crimes vary. For instance, of all reported badger incidents in 2023 sett interference related to hunting and development amounted to 16.8% and 14.2% respectively according to the WCL report. But alongside actors like hunting packs and developers, farmers are an important group when it comes to this issue.
As outlined in a 2013 study, researchers from Bangor University, Kingston University, and the University of Kent, surveyed Welsh farmers who worked with farmed animals in 2011. Using their responses, the researchers estimated that around 10% of farmers had illegally killed badgers in the 12 months prior. Meanwhile, writer and animal campaigner, Heidi Stephenson, wrote in OpenDemocracy that same year:
Some 30 - 40,000 [badgers] are killed on the roads each year, but, since badgers became accused of spreading bTB it is well known that there are many vengeance killings under cover. Some farmers have been accused of gassing, poisoning or shooting badgers on their land, and throwing them on the road, to give the impression that they are road kill.
Another study in 2015 highlighted that badger persecution was more common in areas of Northern Ireland where there was a higher risk of bTB in cows. As The Ecologist reported, this indicated that "responsive persecution" was happening in places where farmers perceived the wild animals to be a threat.
The 2015 study essentially highlighted that the risk of badger persecution appears to increase when they are blamed for spreading bTB. This dynamic is well-established, with the National Federation of Badger Groups (NFBG) warning that some farmers were illegally killing badgers back when the Randomised Badger Cull Trial (RBCT) was taking place in 1999. Speaking to the cause of the persecution, the NFBG's Dr Elaine King explained to a Select Committee on Agriculture:
The problem is that the Ministry of Agriculture [now merged into Defra] has told farmers for so long that badgers give TB to cattle. They largely think it is a pretty clear-cut case. Farmers are killing badgers illegally.
Dramatic drop in badger activity
The illegal badger gassing exposed by Sky News in 2013 is one example of the same dynamic playing out during the current badger cull. Other examples include two farmers being fined in Somerset in 2013 for blocking badger setts on their land and attempting to gas badgers with car exhaust fumes. Meanwhile, it was revealed in 2015 that a Gloucestershire farmer in a cull area had told a field worker from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in 2013 that he had "got rid of" a staggering 118 badgers on his land.
2013 was a year when the estimated numbers of badgers in the Gloucestershire and Somerset cull zones – the two counties where the badger cull was first rolled out – dramatically dropped from estimates in the previous year. The rapid decline in their estimated populations raised suspicions among some experts of illegal persecution in the zones.
More recently, a sudden drop in badger activity has been recorded on Wales' Holy Island, a small island on the western side of Anglesey. Wales does not cull badgers as part of its bTB eradication programme but it does vaccinate some of them. Badgers on Holy Island are surveyed as part of a vaccination project in the area.
In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Welsh government revealed that there was a dramatic drop in recorded sett areas between surveys undertaken in March 2023 and May 2024, from 40 sett areas across 11 farms or "parcels of land" to five sett areas across nine farms/parcels of land, respectively. The number of surveyed land areas differed between these years because two farms dropped out of the project after the 2023 survey.
In the FOI response, the Welsh government pointed to possible natural causes of the decline in badger activity, such as poor cub survival, low birth rates, and seasonal changes impacting food availability. But it described the drop as "unusual" and said it will "continue to monitor the population ahead of annual vaccination." Protect the Wild understands that the police are involved in the matter, although the Welsh government said that liasing and communicating with the local rural police team is "standard protocol" during vaccination rounds.
Nonetheless, the Badger Trust's CEO Nigel Palmer told Protect the Wild that the sudden drop in badger activity on the island is "concerning" and commended the Welsh government for monitoring the issue. The Trust added:
"The costly and failed cull in England has given illegal persecution of badgers a veneer of acceptability among some. Viewers of the excellent ITV series "Out There" will have seen illegal killing of badgers shown as commonplace - which it too often is. Neither culling nor vaccination stops that - only coming clean over the shamelessly political lies told about badgers and bTB rates in cattle will."
Under cover of the cull
It's important to acknowledge that there are undoubtedly plenty of farmers who object to the persecution of badgers. Indeed, some farmers have taken a stand against the cull.
However, a Badger Trust survey of farmers in 2024 revealed that over 87% of farmers believe badger numbers should be "controlled" regardless of whether they transmit bTB or not. Considering this finding alongside the examples of illegal persecution occurring when badgers are blamed for spreading this disease, Protect the Wild believes it is reasonable to consider farmers a risk group, in addition to other actors like hunters and developers.
While national, police-led initiatives exist to tackle badger persecution by anyone, including farmers, there does not appear to be anything baked into the government's bTB eradication strategy that is specifically aimed at monitoring and deterring illegal badger persecution. When we asked DEFRA about this, it pointed to its involvement in the Badger Persecution Priority Delivery Group, its funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit's work, and to oversight of the badger cull, such as monitoring measures, among other things. But it did not spotlight any anti-persecution measures within the bTB strategy.
As Natural England has explained, it monitors daily data on cull numbers. Sett surveys are also conducted in cull areas ahead of annual operations, which are carried out by cull companies. Additionally, Natural England undertakes sett surveys in cull areas that failed to meet their kill targets in the previous year "to confirm the continued presence of badgers in these areas."
Despite the cull being subject to these sort of monitoring measures, however, the policy opened avenues for some individuals to conduct illicit activities, according to a 2021 paper by Dr Orlando Bloom, a criminology lecturer at the University of Plymouth. In the paper, which was published in the British Journal of Criminology, Bloom revealed how the cull provided the opportunity for "rogue elements" to illegally kill deer at night, under the cover of their 'legitimate' cull operations.
Moreover, Bloom's paper detailed how contractors were able to game the system and "gain additional payments-per-cull from shooting badgers improperly, in ways that contravene the stipulations of the dispatch protocol and that constitutes persecution under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992."
As BBC News reported in 2019, one cull contractor also shot badgers outside of the permitted cull period and stored them in freezers, aiming to submit their bodies for payment once the cull period re-opened. He was taken to court and received an 18-week suspended sentence, alongside being ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work.
Unintended consequences
As Bloom described it, rural policies like the badger cull can have "unintended consequences" by creating structures that provide the opportunity for "rogue countryside stewards" to engage in illicit acts. This is in no small part because on-the-ground monitoring of the deed itself, i.e. oversight of even licenced contractors killing badgers at night, is minimal, as the paper highlighted.
In the examples Bloom provided, financial gain was the primary motive for wrongdoing. But given the strength of feeling among many 'countryside stewards' about badgers needing to be controlled, Protect the Wild believes it is incumbent on the government to ensure that bTB measures outlined in its new strategy are subject to robust oversight to ensure there is no risk that illicit badger persecution becomes an 'unintended consequence' of them.
The strategy includes measures such as surveying the badger population for the first time in a decade and a ramping up of badger vaccination efforts. As Protect the Wild previously reported, a badger vaccination study forms part of the strategy, which is a farmer-led initiative.
Given that bTB policy is changing under the current government, Protect the Wild believes that now is a particularly important moment for more attention to be given to illegal badger persecution, including through the bTB strategy. Although the government has not committed to ending the cull swiftly, as many took its manifesto promise on this issue to mean, the badger cull is winding down to an extent. Most existing cull licences are set to expire in 2026. The government shockingly did approve a brand new cull in Cumbria last year, though. so it's possible that it will green light further culls, particularly as it has said that the cull may not end until 2029. But it's hard to imagine that any future approved culls will be on the same scale as the blood-soaked travesty that has occurred over the last decade or so.
On top of this, not much has changed since the NFBG's Dr King addressed the Select Committee on Agriculture in 1999. As then the government is effectively telling farmers that badgers give bTB to cows by continuing with the cull. There is mounting evidence that this conclusion is wrong and that cow-focused measures are the solution to tackling the disease. The Labour government has convened a review panel to consider "whether there’s any substantive new evidence that might affect previous conclusions", but as we pointed out recently this panel is made up of academics who have spent years defending badger culling.
To sum up, though there will likely be less badger culling permitted in the coming years, the bTB policy to date has undoubtedly convinced many farmers that the wild animals are responsible for transmitting the disease. We believe this heightens the risk of illegal badger persecution. Protect the Wild urges the government to use all the tools at its disposal, including the bTB strategy, to safeguard badgers at this critical time.
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It needs to ensure very strong protection! Difficult to change the mindset of ignorance and bloodlust of individuals who deem themselves at liberty to do whatever they want in isolated, discreet areas.
I've signed every petition regarding this issue. Very disappointed in Labour's response to this as a whole.