Farming Minister's badger cull weak response to our concerns

Daniel Zeichner sticking with Defra-appointed bTb review panel we think is clearly pro-cull.

Six weeks ago (on February 16th), Daniel Zeichner, Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), began receiving thousands of emails from signatories to a now-closed petition we had just set up after discovering the existence of a secret government review looking at the latest science on bovine TB (bTB) control with findings due in June.

Instead of choosing independent experts, we learned that officials under Minister Daniel Zeichner had filled the panel with many of the same people who have spent years pushing for badger culling. Chair of the panel was Professor Charles Godfray, the Oxford academic whose previous role in the 2018 bTB review directly contributed to the continuation of mass badger killing.

Oxfordshire Badger Group called the situation “a real Oxford scandal”, and it sounds to us very much like the ‘sham consultation’ on the badger cull Defra launched in April 2024. We wrote at the time that “We feel strongly that the government has already decided the outcome (to continue killing badgers) and is not interested in responses from individuals (it has already essentially said it will prioritise responses from ‘groups - ie the NFU).”

This new ‘review’ sounds very similar. If this review - the petition letter told Mr Zeichner last month - is allowed to proceed in its current form, “it will lack all credibility and further entrench bad science in government decision-making”. How can we expect a panel stacked with pro-cull individuals to ever admit they got it wrong?

The Farming Minister’s weak response: badgers

In his email to us, Mr Zeichner began by acknowledging that

“Defra has recently received a high volume of correspondence about Defra review of bovine tuberculosis (TB), in a campaign led by your organisation.”

Good (and thank you to all the supporters who ‘corresponded’). The ‘high volume’ should help Defra realise how under scrutiny it is at the moment and Mr Zeichner would (surely?) frame any response to at least give the impression that he understands how much the public (especially a public motivated by a pro-wildlife organisation like Protect the Wild) loves badgers and is focussed on how this senseless cull is impacting them.

Not a bit of it. Perhaps we shouldn’t have expected much else (this was an ‘official’ Ministerial response rather than a pitch to wildlife enthusiasts), but Mr Zeichner mentions badgers just three times in his email to us - and all three times it is with reference to culling, the panel, and business interests (for example, “to continue to drive down disease rates to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods and to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament”).

He does mention that he is aware of “the distress many people feel regarding badger culling“, but there is no empathy for the quarter of a million badgers already killed, and no acknowledgement of their protected status or of their importance to natural landscapes and ecosystems.

To be frank, we find that unacceptable.

The Farming Minister’s weak response: the panel

Mr Zeichner’s support for his Defra-appointed panel of pro-cull academics is total.

“I asked Defra officials to reconvene a panel of experts to consider whether there’s any substantive new evidence that might affect previous conclusions. I asked Professor Sir Charles Godfray to lead this panel, having previously led the 2018 strategy review, which I recommend all interested parties read. I chose him for his expertise and esteemed standing in the scientific community. He and the other panel members bring diverse knowledge from respected academic institutions, which is reflected in the balanced account of complex issues in the previous review.

I do not share your view of the panel, nor do I believe they hold long-standing pro-badger culling positions.”

We (respectfully? the jury is out on that…) disagree. The record speaks against Mr Zeichner on this. The group recommended the continuation of culling in 2018 leading to around 150,000 more badger killings. We see no reason why it will not be ‘more of the same’.

We ask again, what is the point of a review packed with the same people who dispute or ignore the evidence that culling is ‘ineffective’ and which means that culling can take place for the rest of this decade?

After all, as long ago as 2017 ecologist Tom Langton wrote in an article ‘Lies, Damn Lies, and Twisted Statistics” that “a robust reanalysis of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) data [the data on which the badger cull was based] reveals that culling is entirely ineffective” (ironically, ‘ineffective’ was the word Labour used in its own Manifesto to describe the cull it is now prolonging).

More recently Tom, veterinarian and Prion Group director Iain McGill, and Born Free’s head of policy and veterinarian Mark Jones, co-authored a hard-hitting report which analyzed the impact of badger culling and cattle controls on bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle in the high-risk area (HRA) of England from 2009 to 2020. Published in March 2022 in VetRecord, the authors found no meaningful effect of badger culling on bTB incidence saying “Badger culling is likely not responsible for initiating the levelling off and downward trend” of herd infections in the HRA.

The facts are widely available. As it stands, the make-up of this panel looks suspiciously like a weak attempt to pacify the NFU and the farming industry rather than an unbiased examination of a critically important wildlife issue.

We previously outlined six steps we want to see taken before we will be persuaded of the impartiality of this ‘review panel’, and we repeat them here:

1️⃣ Professor Charles Godfray must step down from the panel.

2️⃣ No Oxford academics should be involved in reviewing their own work.

3️⃣ No panel members should have a history of supporting badger culling.

4️⃣ Minister Zeichner must act decisively and appoint a truly independent review team.

5️⃣ The Chief Veterinary Officer and APHA leadership must be held accountable for their failures.

6️⃣ All badger culling must end—immediately.

The Farming Minister’s weak response: conclusion

Mr Zeichner concludes his email to us saying

“I firmly believe the new strategy will mark a significant step-change in approach to tackling this devastating disease, charting a new direction that protects both the farming community and wildlife, and which delivers on the government’s manifesto commitment.”

This is the same ‘farming community’ that caused bTb to spread when it ‘restocked’ after foot and mouth. Has continually ignored warnings about biosecurity. And has alienated many in both rural and urban areas by its continual attacks on wildlife and the environment.

Yes, we’re fully aware that if government were a hotel, then Protect the Wild would be kept waiting in the lobby while Defra and the NFU would be sharing adjoining suites on the top floor. We also understand that in his role as Farming Minister, Mr Zeichner wants to keep the farming industry onside while trying to sound sympathetic to activists like us. But while yet another review and yet another ‘direction’ might seem like striking some sort of balance, Mr Zeichner should also be aware that the ‘farming community’ will never really back his government and that most pro-wildlife voters already feel substantially let down by it.

When it came to power, many of us had hoped for a clear separation between the Labour government and the previous anti-wildlife Tory regime. Many of us have been disappointed. It appears generally supportive of commercial bird shooting, has not been nearly quick enough to ban so-called ‘trail hunting’, and - it seems - is now finding ways to look like it’s ‘doing something’ while protracting the inevitable end of the unpopular - and scientifically unjustifiable - badger cull.

If Mr Zeichner (or more likely the officials that would have helped write it) had hoped that his letter to us would come across as moderate and mollify activists like us, he/they are mistaken. The truth is that we are far better informed and far more widely read than Mr Zeichner appreciates. The government must act faster, listen to independent experts like Tom Langton, and instead of using ill-defined phrases like “end the badger cull by the end of this parliament” needs to ditch the review and pledge to end the cull immediately.

After the few weeks it has just had forcing through unpopular welfare reforms, this government really needs what friends it has left. And right now its friends are telling it that it needs to do far better, far quicker before any residual goodwill is lost entirely.

• Download a pdf of Mr Zeichner’s letter here.

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