The Badger Cull has been in the news. Since culling started in 2013, we've become hardened to the remorseless growth of the cull zones; the horrific annual mortality figures and DEFRA's refusal to accept the evidence that culling is not effective in controlling bTB. The new Labour Government's U turn on promises to end culling if they came into power was a massive blow to our hopes (and demolished their environmental credentials).
The news is bitter sweet and hits hard. The badger cull is a national scandal. We must continue to hold the, politicians and scientists behind the Cull to account. Farmers and badgers are suffering a great disservice due to the reliance on flawed science and hearsay.
An Ancient Bluebell Wood Bereft of Badgers - A 'quiet tragedy'
Many of us were brought to close to tears when we read about Northampton Badger Group's finding that thriving badger setts are now empty due to the cull. They were called out by the Woodland Trust who suspected sett blocking. But found the setts abandoned and completely dead. The ancient woodland close to Daventry has been wooded since at least AD1600. Its badgers will have helped developed and shape this irreplaceable, complex ecosystem. Now, probably for the first time, the woodland is no longer alive with badgers. We send our sympathy and support to our friends Sally Jones and co. across the border.
It is remarkable, how 'dead' an abandoned sett feels - the absence of life is tangible.
2024 Cull Figures Released on 11th June
The 2024 Badger Cull figures were published on the 11th June . Overall 17,150 Badgers were killed last year - bringing the total killed since 2013 nationally to 247.880 (51% of the last population estimate) . The 3 'Oxfordshire' cull zones all took their toll. The large supplementary cull zone in Vale (zone 49) struggled to kill enough badgers Don't be reassured that only 155 badgers were killed out of a minimum target of 128. It means that 4 years of intensive culling have decimated the badger population.
Natural England will have known these figures when it re-issued 9 supplementary cull zone licences for 2025 - against the advice of it's own chief scientist and despite active legal challenge.
For more detailed information and link to the cull figures please see the Badger Trust news
New scientific review shatters Oxford University Dept of Statistics reputation - as Prof. Donnelly is forced to admit that 'a few tweeks' are needed.
Oxford Universities’ Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT – Nature 2006) provides the definitive scientific justification for the badger cull. There is now a considerable body of evidence challenging Oxford’s original work. On 13th June, The London based Royal Society Open Science published a paper^ that can be downloaded below. It shows that RBCT used seriously flawed statistical methods. When the original data are analysed properly there is NO evidence that culling badgers has ANY disease control benefit.
The Independent News article covers this in good detail and a copy can be downloaded below
This totally vindicates our long campaign to engage with the Oxford Scientists involved in the RBCT and urge them to accept that the scientific evidence does not support culling badgers. Good science, the advancement of knowledge and evidence based policy relies on scientific integrity and willingness to accept new evidence, even if it contradicts your prior belief.
We quote: Epidemiologist Prof Christl Donnelly, professor of Applied Statistics at Oxford University, told The Independent that in the light of recent correspondence they would
make some minor tweaks to some of their models. “Crucially, the position does not change: repeated widespread badger culling can reduce risks of bovine TB to cattle inside culled areas, while
increasing risks to cattle on nearby unculled land,” she said.
Please form your own view of Prof Donnelly's scientific integrity and of how DEFRA is interpreting the evidence base.
^ Torgerson PR, Hartnack S, Rasmussen P, Lewis FI, O’Donnell P, Langton TE.S.2025 Randomised Badger Culling Trial—no effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle: comment on Mills, Woodroffe and Donnelly (2024a, 2024b). R. Soc. Open Sci. 12:241609. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.241609 BTB060625
How you can help
It is important to keep up the pressure on the scientists to tell DEFRA that culling has no part to play, and hold Natural England, DEFRA and the Ministers responsible to account.
Contact your MP about the lack of evidence for culling and sask them to question the issue of cull licences for 2025 by Natural England. Please join us in our fight against this flawed policy
