POLL: Do you agree that Defra's Badger Cull Consultation is a sham?

Protect the Wild thinks so

Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

On 24 March Defra launched a highly controversial month-long ‘public’ consultation on newly revised plans to continue the killing of badgers in England on behalf of the dairy industry (see Badger Cull U-Turn: "Sunak now wants all the badgers dead").

Protect the Wild would normally look at what the questions in a consultation like this actually mean and offer suggestions on how to answer them - but not this time.

As we reported (via the Badger Crowd) on 26 March:

This consultation is badly worded in places and the detail is hard to comprehend. It appears unrealistic in terms of scale and implementation. The questions asked in this consultation are minimal and generally loaded towards the respondent agreeing with the described process to keep on killing healthy badgers into the future.

Photo by Hans Veth on Unsplash

We feel this consultation process is a sham. Here are the reasons why we won’t be responding to it.

If the consultation were to mean anything the government would be asking whether the cull should continue or stop immediately.

• The present culling policy is due to end in late 2025, but this consultation would allow culling far beyond that. If the government were seriously asking for the public’s opinion it would be whether we want the cull to continue or not - it wouldn’t be to determine in what form it should continue.

All previous Defra badger cull consultations have resulted in the implementation of policies as set out in the consultation, whatever the responses have been.

• History tells us that these consultations are democratic in principle only - regardless of how anti-cull individuals and groups respond the killing will continue. The plan is clearly to rubber-stamp the killing of badgers into the future.

This ‘consultation’ isn’t fair.

• The ‘Gunning Principles’ lay out the four principles that should underpin a consultation - (1) ‘proposals are still at a formative stage’ (ie a final decision has not yet been made, or predetermined, by the decision makers), (2) ‘there is sufficient information to give ‘intelligent consideration’ (see below), (3) ‘there is adequate time for consideration and response’ (this is generally accepted to be twelve weeks not the four in this case), or (4) ‘conscientious consideration’ must be given to the consultation responses before a decision is made‘. We feel that none are adhered to.

The consultation actually aims to make the cull LESS democratic and accountable.

• In a move clearly meant to lock an incoming government into the cull, the plan is to allow unelected Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss to decide, in secret, an unlimited number of cull areas, forever. This is what pro-cull groups - whose responses will be prioritised according to the consultation itself - want.

The science the consultation is based on is flawed.

• The consultation is based entirely around the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs saying that badger culling has worked. That’s not true. Peer-reviewed published science says it is not possible to directly attribute the fall in bTB breakdowns to badger culling. Latest figures show bTB INCREASING in some heavily culled areas.

Even experts don’t have the information they need to give properly informed answers.

• The badger cull is complex, misinformation from the government and lobbyists is widespread in the national media, the role of badgers in the transmission of bovine TB has been greatly overstated, and even experts can’t verify the ‘facts’ in the consultation because it relies heavily on a report by Birch et al, but details on how Birch reaches its conclusions are not included.

There is no consideration of badger welfare.

• Under the consultation, 100% of badgers will be killed in some ‘cluster areas’. The aim is to shoot more and more of them at night from a distance (‘freeshooting’). There is no consideration of the prolonged suffering and injury this will cause. Without including these discussions it is clear what outcome the government wants.

The government and Defra know that the badgers they are killing are healthy.

• Again, the clear intention is to allow the dairy industry to kill badgers regardless of the fact that virtually no inspection of killed badgers takes place - and when it does the vast majority of dead badgers do NOT have bovine TB.

The consultation still fails to plan for the impact of the cull on nature sites.

• Monitoring how the almost total removal of a meso-predator like the badger would be challenging and expensive - but critically important in one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet. Yet again, though, there are no plans to monitor potential harm to nature sites and other species when badgers are eradicated.

The plan fails to say whether public money is being spent properly.

• It’s not the public that has allowed the spread of Bovine TB through poor biosecurity, but according to the consultation it is the public that will continue to pay for the licensing operation and monitoring, as well as the cost of policing culls, and support with costs incurred by the dairy industry when carrying out badger vaccination. There is no cost-benefit analysis - and why would there be when the government doesn’t mind how much of our money is being spent on killing badgers.

Photo by Robert Hoffmann on Unsplash

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).

Protect the Wild could suggest that each of us go through the consultation line by line, but in our honest opinion we don’t think that would change anything. There is insufficient information, neither badgers nor the public are being considered in the government’s plans, we have no faith at all that anti-cull views will be taken into account, and the clear intention is that the cull should continue anyway.

Thousands of readers will view this post. We feel that rather than a few of us firing answers into the ether based on information that we don’t have and which will be ignored anyway, it would send a far stronger message if a substantial number of us answered the poll below. We will then put the poll results in front of a huge audience on our social media platforms.

If you would like to take part in the Defra consultation you have until 11:59 pm on 22 April. Details can be found at consult.defra.gov.uk/bovine-tb/bovine-tb-consultation-wildlife-cattle/

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