PILOT BADGER CULLS FLY IN THE FACE OF SCIENCE

The New Year greeting to England’s cattle farming industry could be an even bigger bill than they expect for badger culling in attempts to eradicate bovine tuberculosis (bTB). This is why.

The NFU is likely to propose that badgers could be killed over trial areas from 250 to 450 sq Km, up to three times the Coalition Government’s minimum, according to a report in the Farmers’ Weekly. Cattle farmers collectively could have to pay for a full-scale culling programme if the trial was considered effective and humane. The larger areas would be equivalent to squares of 13 miles by 13, but it is not yet possible to estimate the scale of the actual operations because the locations have not been revealed.

However, as a hypothetical example of the work that would need to be undertaken the Badger Trust has been analysing the Cambridgeshire constituency of Mr James Paice, the farming minister. It is described as being “centred on Ely” and a square of 450 sq Km with Ely at its centre contains almost 3,000 fields, not counting gardens and woodlands which could also be a refuge for badgers.

The size of the culling problem in such an area would be this:

FIRST, all the badgers would have to be counted. Contractors would then have to prove that at least 70 per cent had been killed - in a humane manner - over 70 per cent of the territory.

SECOND, only then could the projected benefit be a possibility: a mere 16 per cent fewer herds affected over nine years as estimated on data from the £50-million Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT). The Coalition Government has stated that this is the only sufficiently rigorous trial to be taken into consideration.

THIRD, this benefit would need the conditions to be in line with the RBCT. That involved the smaller task of killing in areas of about six miles square over only a few days – not the six weeks announced in the Commons last year nor over larger areas.

FOURTH, synchronising the killings is essential; it would be much harder over the six weeks.

FIFTH, no comparisons with the RBCT results - including the estimated 16 per cent benefit – can be inferred because the effectiveness of free shooting badgers at night has not been rigorously substantiated. It is not comparable with the humane and accountable method of cage trapping followed by shooting in broad daylight as in the RBCT. Furthermore the trials will not produce any reliable data about the effect on bTB.

SIXTH, farmers would have to meet an even more massive bill for sufficiently expert staff to cover larger areas for four years.

Badger culling, if it comes to pass, will represent a triumph of prejudice over science, a triumph of the feel-good factor over commonsense and a triumph of political expediency at the expense of a gullible industry.