UK Government approve badger culling

Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 August 2011 23:54 Written by Scotty Wednesday, 20 July 2011 21:55

The British Government have approved plans to introduce badger culling in an effort to combat the spread of Bovine Tuberculosis. The proposal is for two pilot studies next year, followed by a wider rollout if successful. This is a difficult one. Badgers are protected animals under UK and EU law, but the government can approve culling to prevent disease. Bovine TB is a serious issue and reportedly costs the UK £100million a year, but a cull doesn't seem to me to be an effective policy. From what I've read there are serious concerns that badger culls could actually make the problem worse....

The largest study of this kind found that killing badgers could make others flee the target zone and spread the disease to other herds. This is known as 'perturbation' and under the government proposals this would not be monitored - this seems extraordinary to me. The largest study of it's kind to date and it's findings are being completely overlooked it what appears to me to be more an exercise in political expediency and profit than sound scientific reasoning. Though I'm not particuarly surprised.

If a cull DID go ahead, it doesn't seem like it would make much of a difference anyway. Lord Krebs, apparently someone who knows what he's talking about, concludes it would amount to only a 12-16% reduction - hardly justfication for slaughtering thousands of badgers, eh.

What are your thoughts?