Setts in the City: The County Line for Badgers
How are our badgers doing? And why is the new government still culling?
The government has said today it will stop badger culls by the end of this parliament, and work on alternative ways to wipe out Bovine Tuberculosis. But why wait so long?
Today I’m reposting and updating one of this publication’s first articles (from 2022) about why vaccinating rather than shooting badgers is better for everyone, including the thousands of badgers likely to be culled this year, and the cattle that many still believe they threaten.
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As it stands, Sheffield’s badgers are safe. But over the border, the badgers of Derbyshire are under threat, again, from the culls that have been running in the county for four years. 1,594 Derbyshire badgers were ‘removed’ (as the government stats describe the culling) by being shot or cage-trapped in 2023.
The new government announcement today says the culls will be over by the end of this parliament, with the launch of a collection of surveys to collect data on Bovine Tuberculosis (BTB) incidence and spread in badgers, along with a new national Badger Vaccinator Field Force, following the success in Derbyshire (and elsewhere) of enlisting volunteers to help vaccinate badgers in the wild.
Meanwhile, say the government: “Existing cull processes will be honoured to ensure clarity for farmers involved in these culls whilst new measures can be rolled out and take effect.”
But groups like the Wildlife Trusts and the national Badger Trust say BTB is far more usually spread through cattle movements and poor biosecurity measures. And badger vaccination programmes have been shown to work, by removing any BTB threats from badgers, which can carry and transmit the virus to cattle.
The Badger Trust has organised a petition and protest at Parliament on September 3rd asking for all UK badger culls to end immediately.
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