Badger Cull Questioned as UK Tackles Cattle Disease
Date: 15-Dec-05
Country: UK
Author: Nigel Hunt
A group of scientists published a report in Nature magazine indicating culling would be most effective if undertaken over very large areas but, at such a scale, it would need to be determined whether the benefits outweighed the economic and environmental costs.
A second study in the Journal of Applied Ecology found culling increased badger movement in surrounding areas, boosting contact with cattle and other badgers and resulting in an increase in TB infection outside culling zones.
"These results help to explain why badger culling appears to have failed to control cattle TB in the past, and should be taken into account in determining what role, if any, badger culling should play," the second study said.
Badgers are a wildlife host for bovine TB and have been implicated in the spread of the disease. The UK government has backed badger culls on a trial basis for several years to determine their effectiveness in fighting the disease.
Wildlife group the Badger Trust said the studies showed that culling of badgers was not a viable option.
"You would have to have culling from coast to coast and the end doesn't justify it," said Trevor Lawson, spokesman for the group said, noting the UK government had indicated most outbreaks were spread by the movement of cattle, not badgers.
A total of 20,423 cattle were slaughtered during the first eight months of this year following positive herd tests for bovine TB, up nearly 37 percent from 14,940 in the January to August period last year, according to data issued by Britain's farm ministry.
UK animal welfare minister Ben Bradshaw is expected to back pre-movement testing of cattle as part of the government's strategy for tackling the disease, industry sources said.
The outbreak spread rapidly as cattle farms restocked after the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001. There were 8,353 cattle slaughtered following positive tests in 2000.
The National Farmers Union, which backs some culling of badgers in infected areas, has said farmers would be willing to accept compulsory pre-movement testing of cattle "only if action to deal with the disease in badgers is taken simultaneously."