The BBC and other media are reporting that the shooting of badgers will begin in early September in five new areas: South Devon, North Devon, North Cornwall, West Dorset, and South Herefordshire.

However there has been no such announcement from Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is responsible for the badger culls, or its controversial Secretary of State, former Tory leadership contender and Brexit campaigner Andrea Leadsom.

A spokesman for Defra would only say the department was “currently considering applications for further badger control licences as part of the usual licensing process.”

The badger culling policy in England is led by the National Farmers Union (NFU), but largely funded by taxpayers. It is already being carried out in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset at a cost to the taxpayer in excess of £25 million since it began in 2013. The NFU has also released no announcement.

By extending the badger culls to the five new areas of the country taxpayer will be liable for an additional £100 million by 2020, according to the Badger Trust. That’s even though there is no scientific evidence to show how, or indeed whether, badgers actually infect cattle with bovine TB – the official justification for the policy.

Indeed DEFRA statistics show that despite killing thousands of badgers the number of cattle slaughtered for TB continues to rise both in and around the culling zones. Bovine TB is being successfully controlled in Scotland and Wales without culling, relying instead on cattle movement controls and other biosecurity measures.

Ireland is also about to abandon its badger cull policy in favour of vaccination.

Ignoring the real cause: cattle to cattle infection

The Badger Trust has condemned the apparent decision to press ahead with the cull, citing “the complete failure of the policy over the last four years.” So far 3,916 badgers have been killed – and most remarkably, none of the badger carcasses have been tested for TB, throwing away a valuable opportunity to assess any role badgers may have as a TB reservoir.

“After 4 years of badger culling no one can now doubt that the policy has been a disastrous failure on scientific, cost and humaneness grounds”, said Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust. “For the new DEFRA Secretary Andrea Leadsom to ignore the facts and extend this policy into five new areas of the country defies belief. 

“The badger cull is built on three pillars of sand, incompetence, negligence and deceit, and will ultimately collapse because it fails to address the key cause of bovine TB, which is cattle to cattle infection. We could kill every badger in England but bovine TB would continue to spread in cattle herds, due to inaccurate TB testing, excessive numbers of cattle movements and poor biosecurity controls.”

He also condemned the use of the experimental ‘free shooting’ method of killing badgers, which can result in unrecorded hits that can condemn badgers to a slow, painful, lingering death. This practice has been condemned as inhumane by both the government’s Independent Expert Panel and the British Veterinary Association.

Any pretence of ‘science’ long since abandoned

The Chair of the Badger Trust, Peter Martin, added: “The badger is being used as a scapegoat for failures in the modern intensive livestock industry that have led to a significant increase in bovine TB in cattle herds.

“Recent changes to the cull licencing regime have made it clear this policy is now just a ‘numbers game’ based on indiscriminate and untargeted killing of this protected wildlife species. They have abandoned any pretence of science or control.

“We now have conclusive scientific evidence proving beyond doubt that badgers actively avoid cattle in pasture and farm yards, and that cattle avoid feeding on grass where badgers urinate or defecate. This effectively means that the likelihood of badgers passing TB to cattle within the farming environment is so low that it is impossible to distinguish it from any other potential environmental vector, including cattle themselves.”

The government in Westminster is using badgers as a “political fig-leaf to mask its total failure to get to grips with bovine TB”, Martin continued, adding that the government should be following the far more successful example of Wales, which has achieved significant disease reductions in cattle without killing badgers:

“They should be looking to Wales to see how they have waged a far more successful campaign against the disease, based on more rigorous TB testing, tighter cattle control and biosecurity measures. New TB herd incidents in Wales are down by 14% in the last 12 months and all this has been achieved without culling badgers.”

Oliver Tickell is Contributing Editor at The Ecologist.

Also on The Ecologist

• ‘Why are our badgers Badgered to Death?‘ by Lesley Docksey.
• Why are Badgers always at the head of the ‘Blame Queue’? by Lesley Docksey.
• ‘Alas poor Brock! The insanity of the badger cull‘ by Martin Hancox.

“Political factors will ultimately overrule scientific ones when a government takes a decision in a contentious field.” Nature, 2007

Dyer is the Chief Executive of the Badger Trust charity. Everyone who has joined in anti-badger-cull marches and rallies across the country will be familiar with the man leading from the front – whose passionate speeches in defence of one of our most iconic wild animals have constantly condemned the lack of science behind the killing.

Dyer’s first encounter with a badger was on the Isle of Wight. Years later, to his amazement, he saw one happily living in London suburbs. This badger helped his decision to leave a well-paid career and take up full-time work for wildlife conservation.

But why did he become such a champion for the badger?

“Over a period of time I became increasingly angry about the demonisation of the badger. I remember attending many farm industry events during my time in the food and plant science industries where farmers would regularly talk of the need to kill the animal, even discussing how to gas them. And I disliked the way the science and animal welfare concerns were dismissed in a mad rush to kill these animals.”

Being the CEO of the Badger Trust has given him many opportunities to study badgers, and as he says, “The more you get to see them in the wild the more enchanting they become. It does not take long to become hooked as a badger watcher.”

One also, of course, becomes more aware of the lack of science behind badger culling, and it is this devastating lack that Badgered to Death addresses.

Considering how long and complicated the history of badgers and bovine TB is, this could have been a dense and difficult undertaking. But this is not a book filled with references to learned papers and obtuse scientific arguments. Dyer simply and clearly describes the political process by which the badger became the scapegoat for the bovine tuberculosis in England’s cattle.

From the moment the first bovine TB-infected badger was discovered in 1971, no other cause for this disease in cattle has been properly or adequately addressed.

Scientists were saying it was very difficult for badgers to spread TB to cattle

He describes in some detail the experiment carried out by the Central Veterinary Laboratories in 1975, attempting to prove how badgers can give cattle TB. Under very controlled and artificial circumstances it took months for infectious badgers to pass the TB onto calves, even though both badgers and calves were sharing a small and highly restricted living space.

There have been no other such attempts, and later research has since demonstrated that badgers avoid cattle, and that cattle avoid areas where badger might urinate or defecate. There is no science, no evidence, to prove how badgers are supposed to pass TB to cattle.

The Randomised Badger Culling Trials are explored in depth, yet even here Dyer shows how the science gives way to politics. Despite the conclusion that culling badgers could make “no meaningful difference” to controlling TB in cattle, the results were, said the head of the RBCT Lord Krebs, “cherry picked” and skewed in order to justify a cull.

The President of the Royal Society Lord May went further and said the government were “transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

Only politically did the badger cull make any sense

Dyer’s documentation of the political process underlying Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision – and yes, it was his decision – to implement the culls is thorough, detailed and depressing in the government’s refusal to accept the lack of science. As Dyer explains, Cameron’s acceptance was all on the side of receiving rural votes in exchange for a cull.

Of all the strands that created the cull – the politicians, Defra, the NFU and Countryside Alliance, the farmers, scientists, vets, landowners and the hunting community about whom he writes, the clarity diplomatically masking the anger – which of those does Dyer think bears the most responsibility for the culls taking place?

“I think the Veterinary industry is most to blame. For a profession that puts scientific knowledge and animal welfare at the heart of what it stands for, the continued support for the hugely cruel ineffective badger cull is unforgivable in my mind.”

But apart from Cameron, who else could have stopped this useless brutal policy? It was, he felt …

” … the BVA which should have called for a stop to the cull when its Ethics Committee decided free shooting was cruel and ineffective. If they had made it clear that they would no longer support any culling using free shooting the policy would have collapsed on cost grounds.”

He is also scathing of some of the big ‘green’ NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and WWF that did not get engaged or mobilise their thousands of members to add to the political pressure on Cameron’s government.

Yet, at the same time, there are many vets and farmers who are against culling. Asked whether he thought farmers had been let down by Defra and the NFU, Dyer replied:

“Yes, many farmers contact me regularly to say they feel let down by the NFU; they know the TB testing systems are not fit for purpose, they are angry about not getting free access to gamma interferon testing and the delays in introducing a TB cattle vaccine.

“And they know the badger cull is being used as a political football whilst many of them struggle to stay in business.”

Short term economics and politics trumped the protection of nature

Asked to expand on that, he explained: “Science will always be manipulated by politicians to support their priorities. Money on the other hand is always a deciding factor in the success or failure of a policy.

“The government always stated the badger cull would be a farmer-led policy largely paid for by farmers. They lied; it’s a largely publicly funded policy that is spiralling out of control on cost grounds despite being a scientific failure.”

The book’s conclusion is that the culls will be stopped, not by science or validity, but by cost. Yet Dyer remains optimistic: “Despite all the incompetence, negligence and deceit, it’s the caring compassionate British public who have made a stand for wildlife that gives me the most hope for the future.”

His book pays tribute to the ‘Badger Army’, those many individuals from all walks of life who turned out to protest and importantly, once culling started, to protect the badgers out in the field.

Those people will be patrolling the countryside, day and night, in every area where badger killing is taking place this autumn. While determined to protect their badgers, many also want to see the government help and support farmers to beat the TB in their cattle – but with proper cattle-based measures, not by senselessly killing wildlife.

Badgered to Death is for them because it tells them just why they must keep fighting the culls. It will convince any reader how very wrong and ineffective the culls will prove to be.

And it should be read by all those battling against government policies that put money ahead of science and the environment. Our natural world is too important to be over-ridden in this way.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites. 

The book: Badgered to Death is by Dominic Dyer and published by Canbury Press.

The BBC and other media are reporting that the shooting of badgers will begin in early September in five new areas: South Devon, North Devon, North Cornwall, West Dorset, and South Herefordshire.

However there has been no such announcement from Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is responsible for the badger culls, or its controversial Secretary of State, former Tory leadership contender and Brexit campaigner Andrea Leadsom.

A spokesman for Defra would only say the department was “currently considering applications for further badger control licences as part of the usual licensing process.”

The badger culling policy in England is led by the National Farmers Union (NFU), but largely funded by taxpayers. It is already being carried out in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset at a cost to the taxpayer in excess of £25 million since it began in 2013. The NFU has also released no announcement.

By extending the badger culls to the five new areas of the country taxpayer will be liable for an additional £100 million by 2020, according to the Badger Trust. That’s even though there is no scientific evidence to show how, or indeed whether, badgers actually infect cattle with bovine TB – the official justification for the policy.

Indeed DEFRA statistics show that despite killing thousands of badgers the number of cattle slaughtered for TB continues to rise both in and around the culling zones. Bovine TB is being successfully controlled in Scotland and Wales without culling, relying instead on cattle movement controls and other biosecurity measures.

Ireland is also about to abandon its badger cull policy in favour of vaccination.

Ignoring the real cause: cattle to cattle infection

The Badger Trust has condemned the apparent decision to press ahead with the cull, citing “the complete failure of the policy over the last four years.” So far 3,916 badgers have been killed – and most remarkably, none of the badger carcasses have been tested for TB, throwing away a valuable opportunity to assess any role badgers may have as a TB reservoir.

“After 4 years of badger culling no one can now doubt that the policy has been a disastrous failure on scientific, cost and humaneness grounds”, said Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust. “For the new DEFRA Secretary Andrea Leadsom to ignore the facts and extend this policy into five new areas of the country defies belief. 

“The badger cull is built on three pillars of sand, incompetence, negligence and deceit, and will ultimately collapse because it fails to address the key cause of bovine TB, which is cattle to cattle infection. We could kill every badger in England but bovine TB would continue to spread in cattle herds, due to inaccurate TB testing, excessive numbers of cattle movements and poor biosecurity controls.”

He also condemned the use of the experimental ‘free shooting’ method of killing badgers, which can result in unrecorded hits that can condemn badgers to a slow, painful, lingering death. This practice has been condemned as inhumane by both the government’s Independent Expert Panel and the British Veterinary Association.

Any pretence of ‘science’ long since abandoned

The Chair of the Badger Trust, Peter Martin, added: “The badger is being used as a scapegoat for failures in the modern intensive livestock industry that have led to a significant increase in bovine TB in cattle herds.

“Recent changes to the cull licencing regime have made it clear this policy is now just a ‘numbers game’ based on indiscriminate and untargeted killing of this protected wildlife species. They have abandoned any pretence of science or control.

“We now have conclusive scientific evidence proving beyond doubt that badgers actively avoid cattle in pasture and farm yards, and that cattle avoid feeding on grass where badgers urinate or defecate. This effectively means that the likelihood of badgers passing TB to cattle within the farming environment is so low that it is impossible to distinguish it from any other potential environmental vector, including cattle themselves.”

The government in Westminster is using badgers as a “political fig-leaf to mask its total failure to get to grips with bovine TB”, Martin continued, adding that the government should be following the far more successful example of Wales, which has achieved significant disease reductions in cattle without killing badgers:

“They should be looking to Wales to see how they have waged a far more successful campaign against the disease, based on more rigorous TB testing, tighter cattle control and biosecurity measures. New TB herd incidents in Wales are down by 14% in the last 12 months and all this has been achieved without culling badgers.”

Oliver Tickell is Contributing Editor at The Ecologist.

Also on The Ecologist

• ‘Why are our badgers Badgered to Death?‘ by Lesley Docksey.
• Why are Badgers always at the head of the ‘Blame Queue’? by Lesley Docksey.
• ‘Alas poor Brock! The insanity of the badger cull‘ by Martin Hancox.

“Political factors will ultimately overrule scientific ones when a government takes a decision in a contentious field.” Nature, 2007

Dyer is the Chief Executive of the Badger Trust charity. Everyone who has joined in anti-badger-cull marches and rallies across the country will be familiar with the man leading from the front – whose passionate speeches in defence of one of our most iconic wild animals have constantly condemned the lack of science behind the killing.

Dyer’s first encounter with a badger was on the Isle of Wight. Years later, to his amazement, he saw one happily living in London suburbs. This badger helped his decision to leave a well-paid career and take up full-time work for wildlife conservation.

But why did he become such a champion for the badger?

“Over a period of time I became increasingly angry about the demonisation of the badger. I remember attending many farm industry events during my time in the food and plant science industries where farmers would regularly talk of the need to kill the animal, even discussing how to gas them. And I disliked the way the science and animal welfare concerns were dismissed in a mad rush to kill these animals.”

Being the CEO of the Badger Trust has given him many opportunities to study badgers, and as he says, “The more you get to see them in the wild the more enchanting they become. It does not take long to become hooked as a badger watcher.”

One also, of course, becomes more aware of the lack of science behind badger culling, and it is this devastating lack that Badgered to Death addresses.

Considering how long and complicated the history of badgers and bovine TB is, this could have been a dense and difficult undertaking. But this is not a book filled with references to learned papers and obtuse scientific arguments. Dyer simply and clearly describes the political process by which the badger became the scapegoat for the bovine tuberculosis in England’s cattle.

From the moment the first bovine TB-infected badger was discovered in 1971, no other cause for this disease in cattle has been properly or adequately addressed.

Scientists were saying it was very difficult for badgers to spread TB to cattle

He describes in some detail the experiment carried out by the Central Veterinary Laboratories in 1975, attempting to prove how badgers can give cattle TB. Under very controlled and artificial circumstances it took months for infectious badgers to pass the TB onto calves, even though both badgers and calves were sharing a small and highly restricted living space.

There have been no other such attempts, and later research has since demonstrated that badgers avoid cattle, and that cattle avoid areas where badger might urinate or defecate. There is no science, no evidence, to prove how badgers are supposed to pass TB to cattle.

The Randomised Badger Culling Trials are explored in depth, yet even here Dyer shows how the science gives way to politics. Despite the conclusion that culling badgers could make “no meaningful difference” to controlling TB in cattle, the results were, said the head of the RBCT Lord Krebs, “cherry picked” and skewed in order to justify a cull.

The President of the Royal Society Lord May went further and said the government were “transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

Only politically did the badger cull make any sense

Dyer’s documentation of the political process underlying Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision – and yes, it was his decision – to implement the culls is thorough, detailed and depressing in the government’s refusal to accept the lack of science. As Dyer explains, Cameron’s acceptance was all on the side of receiving rural votes in exchange for a cull.

Of all the strands that created the cull – the politicians, Defra, the NFU and Countryside Alliance, the farmers, scientists, vets, landowners and the hunting community about whom he writes, the clarity diplomatically masking the anger – which of those does Dyer think bears the most responsibility for the culls taking place?

“I think the Veterinary industry is most to blame. For a profession that puts scientific knowledge and animal welfare at the heart of what it stands for, the continued support for the hugely cruel ineffective badger cull is unforgivable in my mind.”

But apart from Cameron, who else could have stopped this useless brutal policy? It was, he felt …

” … the BVA which should have called for a stop to the cull when its Ethics Committee decided free shooting was cruel and ineffective. If they had made it clear that they would no longer support any culling using free shooting the policy would have collapsed on cost grounds.”

He is also scathing of some of the big ‘green’ NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and WWF that did not get engaged or mobilise their thousands of members to add to the political pressure on Cameron’s government.

Yet, at the same time, there are many vets and farmers who are against culling. Asked whether he thought farmers had been let down by Defra and the NFU, Dyer replied:

“Yes, many farmers contact me regularly to say they feel let down by the NFU; they know the TB testing systems are not fit for purpose, they are angry about not getting free access to gamma interferon testing and the delays in introducing a TB cattle vaccine.

“And they know the badger cull is being used as a political football whilst many of them struggle to stay in business.”

Short term economics and politics trumped the protection of nature

Asked to expand on that, he explained: “Science will always be manipulated by politicians to support their priorities. Money on the other hand is always a deciding factor in the success or failure of a policy.

“The government always stated the badger cull would be a farmer-led policy largely paid for by farmers. They lied; it’s a largely publicly funded policy that is spiralling out of control on cost grounds despite being a scientific failure.”

The book’s conclusion is that the culls will be stopped, not by science or validity, but by cost. Yet Dyer remains optimistic: “Despite all the incompetence, negligence and deceit, it’s the caring compassionate British public who have made a stand for wildlife that gives me the most hope for the future.”

His book pays tribute to the ‘Badger Army’, those many individuals from all walks of life who turned out to protest and importantly, once culling started, to protect the badgers out in the field.

Those people will be patrolling the countryside, day and night, in every area where badger killing is taking place this autumn. While determined to protect their badgers, many also want to see the government help and support farmers to beat the TB in their cattle – but with proper cattle-based measures, not by senselessly killing wildlife.

Badgered to Death is for them because it tells them just why they must keep fighting the culls. It will convince any reader how very wrong and ineffective the culls will prove to be.

And it should be read by all those battling against government policies that put money ahead of science and the environment. Our natural world is too important to be over-ridden in this way.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites. 

The book: Badgered to Death is by Dominic Dyer and published by Canbury Press.

The BBC and other media are reporting that the shooting of badgers will begin in early September in five new areas: South Devon, North Devon, North Cornwall, West Dorset, and South Herefordshire.

However there has been no such announcement from Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is responsible for the badger culls, or its controversial Secretary of State, former Tory leadership contender and Brexit campaigner Andrea Leadsom.

A spokesman for Defra would only say the department was “currently considering applications for further badger control licences as part of the usual licensing process.”

The badger culling policy in England is led by the National Farmers Union (NFU), but largely funded by taxpayers. It is already being carried out in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset at a cost to the taxpayer in excess of £25 million since it began in 2013. The NFU has also released no announcement.

By extending the badger culls to the five new areas of the country taxpayer will be liable for an additional £100 million by 2020, according to the Badger Trust. That’s even though there is no scientific evidence to show how, or indeed whether, badgers actually infect cattle with bovine TB – the official justification for the policy.

Indeed DEFRA statistics show that despite killing thousands of badgers the number of cattle slaughtered for TB continues to rise both in and around the culling zones. Bovine TB is being successfully controlled in Scotland and Wales without culling, relying instead on cattle movement controls and other biosecurity measures.

Ireland is also about to abandon its badger cull policy in favour of vaccination.

Ignoring the real cause: cattle to cattle infection

The Badger Trust has condemned the apparent decision to press ahead with the cull, citing “the complete failure of the policy over the last four years.” So far 3,916 badgers have been killed – and most remarkably, none of the badger carcasses have been tested for TB, throwing away a valuable opportunity to assess any role badgers may have as a TB reservoir.

“After 4 years of badger culling no one can now doubt that the policy has been a disastrous failure on scientific, cost and humaneness grounds”, said Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust. “For the new DEFRA Secretary Andrea Leadsom to ignore the facts and extend this policy into five new areas of the country defies belief. 

“The badger cull is built on three pillars of sand, incompetence, negligence and deceit, and will ultimately collapse because it fails to address the key cause of bovine TB, which is cattle to cattle infection. We could kill every badger in England but bovine TB would continue to spread in cattle herds, due to inaccurate TB testing, excessive numbers of cattle movements and poor biosecurity controls.”

He also condemned the use of the experimental ‘free shooting’ method of killing badgers, which can result in unrecorded hits that can condemn badgers to a slow, painful, lingering death. This practice has been condemned as inhumane by both the government’s Independent Expert Panel and the British Veterinary Association.

Any pretence of ‘science’ long since abandoned

The Chair of the Badger Trust, Peter Martin, added: “The badger is being used as a scapegoat for failures in the modern intensive livestock industry that have led to a significant increase in bovine TB in cattle herds.

“Recent changes to the cull licencing regime have made it clear this policy is now just a ‘numbers game’ based on indiscriminate and untargeted killing of this protected wildlife species. They have abandoned any pretence of science or control.

“We now have conclusive scientific evidence proving beyond doubt that badgers actively avoid cattle in pasture and farm yards, and that cattle avoid feeding on grass where badgers urinate or defecate. This effectively means that the likelihood of badgers passing TB to cattle within the farming environment is so low that it is impossible to distinguish it from any other potential environmental vector, including cattle themselves.”

The government in Westminster is using badgers as a “political fig-leaf to mask its total failure to get to grips with bovine TB”, Martin continued, adding that the government should be following the far more successful example of Wales, which has achieved significant disease reductions in cattle without killing badgers:

“They should be looking to Wales to see how they have waged a far more successful campaign against the disease, based on more rigorous TB testing, tighter cattle control and biosecurity measures. New TB herd incidents in Wales are down by 14% in the last 12 months and all this has been achieved without culling badgers.”

Oliver Tickell is Contributing Editor at The Ecologist.

Also on The Ecologist

• ‘Why are our badgers Badgered to Death?‘ by Lesley Docksey.
• Why are Badgers always at the head of the ‘Blame Queue’? by Lesley Docksey.
• ‘Alas poor Brock! The insanity of the badger cull‘ by Martin Hancox.

“Political factors will ultimately overrule scientific ones when a government takes a decision in a contentious field.” Nature, 2007

Dyer is the Chief Executive of the Badger Trust charity. Everyone who has joined in anti-badger-cull marches and rallies across the country will be familiar with the man leading from the front – whose passionate speeches in defence of one of our most iconic wild animals have constantly condemned the lack of science behind the killing.

Dyer’s first encounter with a badger was on the Isle of Wight. Years later, to his amazement, he saw one happily living in London suburbs. This badger helped his decision to leave a well-paid career and take up full-time work for wildlife conservation.

But why did he become such a champion for the badger?

“Over a period of time I became increasingly angry about the demonisation of the badger. I remember attending many farm industry events during my time in the food and plant science industries where farmers would regularly talk of the need to kill the animal, even discussing how to gas them. And I disliked the way the science and animal welfare concerns were dismissed in a mad rush to kill these animals.”

Being the CEO of the Badger Trust has given him many opportunities to study badgers, and as he says, “The more you get to see them in the wild the more enchanting they become. It does not take long to become hooked as a badger watcher.”

One also, of course, becomes more aware of the lack of science behind badger culling, and it is this devastating lack that Badgered to Death addresses.

Considering how long and complicated the history of badgers and bovine TB is, this could have been a dense and difficult undertaking. But this is not a book filled with references to learned papers and obtuse scientific arguments. Dyer simply and clearly describes the political process by which the badger became the scapegoat for the bovine tuberculosis in England’s cattle.

From the moment the first bovine TB-infected badger was discovered in 1971, no other cause for this disease in cattle has been properly or adequately addressed.

Scientists were saying it was very difficult for badgers to spread TB to cattle

He describes in some detail the experiment carried out by the Central Veterinary Laboratories in 1975, attempting to prove how badgers can give cattle TB. Under very controlled and artificial circumstances it took months for infectious badgers to pass the TB onto calves, even though both badgers and calves were sharing a small and highly restricted living space.

There have been no other such attempts, and later research has since demonstrated that badgers avoid cattle, and that cattle avoid areas where badger might urinate or defecate. There is no science, no evidence, to prove how badgers are supposed to pass TB to cattle.

The Randomised Badger Culling Trials are explored in depth, yet even here Dyer shows how the science gives way to politics. Despite the conclusion that culling badgers could make “no meaningful difference” to controlling TB in cattle, the results were, said the head of the RBCT Lord Krebs, “cherry picked” and skewed in order to justify a cull.

The President of the Royal Society Lord May went further and said the government were “transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

Only politically did the badger cull make any sense

Dyer’s documentation of the political process underlying Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision – and yes, it was his decision – to implement the culls is thorough, detailed and depressing in the government’s refusal to accept the lack of science. As Dyer explains, Cameron’s acceptance was all on the side of receiving rural votes in exchange for a cull.

Of all the strands that created the cull – the politicians, Defra, the NFU and Countryside Alliance, the farmers, scientists, vets, landowners and the hunting community about whom he writes, the clarity diplomatically masking the anger – which of those does Dyer think bears the most responsibility for the culls taking place?

“I think the Veterinary industry is most to blame. For a profession that puts scientific knowledge and animal welfare at the heart of what it stands for, the continued support for the hugely cruel ineffective badger cull is unforgivable in my mind.”

But apart from Cameron, who else could have stopped this useless brutal policy? It was, he felt …

” … the BVA which should have called for a stop to the cull when its Ethics Committee decided free shooting was cruel and ineffective. If they had made it clear that they would no longer support any culling using free shooting the policy would have collapsed on cost grounds.”

He is also scathing of some of the big ‘green’ NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and WWF that did not get engaged or mobilise their thousands of members to add to the political pressure on Cameron’s government.

Yet, at the same time, there are many vets and farmers who are against culling. Asked whether he thought farmers had been let down by Defra and the NFU, Dyer replied:

“Yes, many farmers contact me regularly to say they feel let down by the NFU; they know the TB testing systems are not fit for purpose, they are angry about not getting free access to gamma interferon testing and the delays in introducing a TB cattle vaccine.

“And they know the badger cull is being used as a political football whilst many of them struggle to stay in business.”

Short term economics and politics trumped the protection of nature

Asked to expand on that, he explained: “Science will always be manipulated by politicians to support their priorities. Money on the other hand is always a deciding factor in the success or failure of a policy.

“The government always stated the badger cull would be a farmer-led policy largely paid for by farmers. They lied; it’s a largely publicly funded policy that is spiralling out of control on cost grounds despite being a scientific failure.”

The book’s conclusion is that the culls will be stopped, not by science or validity, but by cost. Yet Dyer remains optimistic: “Despite all the incompetence, negligence and deceit, it’s the caring compassionate British public who have made a stand for wildlife that gives me the most hope for the future.”

His book pays tribute to the ‘Badger Army’, those many individuals from all walks of life who turned out to protest and importantly, once culling started, to protect the badgers out in the field.

Those people will be patrolling the countryside, day and night, in every area where badger killing is taking place this autumn. While determined to protect their badgers, many also want to see the government help and support farmers to beat the TB in their cattle – but with proper cattle-based measures, not by senselessly killing wildlife.

Badgered to Death is for them because it tells them just why they must keep fighting the culls. It will convince any reader how very wrong and ineffective the culls will prove to be.

And it should be read by all those battling against government policies that put money ahead of science and the environment. Our natural world is too important to be over-ridden in this way.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites. 

The book: Badgered to Death is by Dominic Dyer and published by Canbury Press.

The BBC and other media are reporting that the shooting of badgers will begin in early September in five new areas: South Devon, North Devon, North Cornwall, West Dorset, and South Herefordshire.

However there has been no such announcement from Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is responsible for the badger culls, or its controversial Secretary of State, former Tory leadership contender and Brexit campaigner Andrea Leadsom.

A spokesman for Defra would only say the department was “currently considering applications for further badger control licences as part of the usual licensing process.”

The badger culling policy in England is led by the National Farmers Union (NFU), but largely funded by taxpayers. It is already being carried out in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset at a cost to the taxpayer in excess of £25 million since it began in 2013. The NFU has also released no announcement.

By extending the badger culls to the five new areas of the country taxpayer will be liable for an additional £100 million by 2020, according to the Badger Trust. That’s even though there is no scientific evidence to show how, or indeed whether, badgers actually infect cattle with bovine TB – the official justification for the policy.

Indeed DEFRA statistics show that despite killing thousands of badgers the number of cattle slaughtered for TB continues to rise both in and around the culling zones. Bovine TB is being successfully controlled in Scotland and Wales without culling, relying instead on cattle movement controls and other biosecurity measures.

Ireland is also about to abandon its badger cull policy in favour of vaccination.

Ignoring the real cause: cattle to cattle infection

The Badger Trust has condemned the apparent decision to press ahead with the cull, citing “the complete failure of the policy over the last four years.” So far 3,916 badgers have been killed – and most remarkably, none of the badger carcasses have been tested for TB, throwing away a valuable opportunity to assess any role badgers may have as a TB reservoir.

“After 4 years of badger culling no one can now doubt that the policy has been a disastrous failure on scientific, cost and humaneness grounds”, said Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust. “For the new DEFRA Secretary Andrea Leadsom to ignore the facts and extend this policy into five new areas of the country defies belief. 

“The badger cull is built on three pillars of sand, incompetence, negligence and deceit, and will ultimately collapse because it fails to address the key cause of bovine TB, which is cattle to cattle infection. We could kill every badger in England but bovine TB would continue to spread in cattle herds, due to inaccurate TB testing, excessive numbers of cattle movements and poor biosecurity controls.”

He also condemned the use of the experimental ‘free shooting’ method of killing badgers, which can result in unrecorded hits that can condemn badgers to a slow, painful, lingering death. This practice has been condemned as inhumane by both the government’s Independent Expert Panel and the British Veterinary Association.

Any pretence of ‘science’ long since abandoned

The Chair of the Badger Trust, Peter Martin, added: “The badger is being used as a scapegoat for failures in the modern intensive livestock industry that have led to a significant increase in bovine TB in cattle herds.

“Recent changes to the cull licencing regime have made it clear this policy is now just a ‘numbers game’ based on indiscriminate and untargeted killing of this protected wildlife species. They have abandoned any pretence of science or control.

“We now have conclusive scientific evidence proving beyond doubt that badgers actively avoid cattle in pasture and farm yards, and that cattle avoid feeding on grass where badgers urinate or defecate. This effectively means that the likelihood of badgers passing TB to cattle within the farming environment is so low that it is impossible to distinguish it from any other potential environmental vector, including cattle themselves.”

The government in Westminster is using badgers as a “political fig-leaf to mask its total failure to get to grips with bovine TB”, Martin continued, adding that the government should be following the far more successful example of Wales, which has achieved significant disease reductions in cattle without killing badgers:

“They should be looking to Wales to see how they have waged a far more successful campaign against the disease, based on more rigorous TB testing, tighter cattle control and biosecurity measures. New TB herd incidents in Wales are down by 14% in the last 12 months and all this has been achieved without culling badgers.”

Oliver Tickell is Contributing Editor at The Ecologist.

Also on The Ecologist

• ‘Why are our badgers Badgered to Death?‘ by Lesley Docksey.
• Why are Badgers always at the head of the ‘Blame Queue’? by Lesley Docksey.
• ‘Alas poor Brock! The insanity of the badger cull‘ by Martin Hancox.

“Political factors will ultimately overrule scientific ones when a government takes a decision in a contentious field.” Nature, 2007

Dyer is the Chief Executive of the Badger Trust charity. Everyone who has joined in anti-badger-cull marches and rallies across the country will be familiar with the man leading from the front – whose passionate speeches in defence of one of our most iconic wild animals have constantly condemned the lack of science behind the killing.

Dyer’s first encounter with a badger was on the Isle of Wight. Years later, to his amazement, he saw one happily living in London suburbs. This badger helped his decision to leave a well-paid career and take up full-time work for wildlife conservation.

But why did he become such a champion for the badger?

“Over a period of time I became increasingly angry about the demonisation of the badger. I remember attending many farm industry events during my time in the food and plant science industries where farmers would regularly talk of the need to kill the animal, even discussing how to gas them. And I disliked the way the science and animal welfare concerns were dismissed in a mad rush to kill these animals.”

Being the CEO of the Badger Trust has given him many opportunities to study badgers, and as he says, “The more you get to see them in the wild the more enchanting they become. It does not take long to become hooked as a badger watcher.”

One also, of course, becomes more aware of the lack of science behind badger culling, and it is this devastating lack that Badgered to Death addresses.

Considering how long and complicated the history of badgers and bovine TB is, this could have been a dense and difficult undertaking. But this is not a book filled with references to learned papers and obtuse scientific arguments. Dyer simply and clearly describes the political process by which the badger became the scapegoat for the bovine tuberculosis in England’s cattle.

From the moment the first bovine TB-infected badger was discovered in 1971, no other cause for this disease in cattle has been properly or adequately addressed.

Scientists were saying it was very difficult for badgers to spread TB to cattle

He describes in some detail the experiment carried out by the Central Veterinary Laboratories in 1975, attempting to prove how badgers can give cattle TB. Under very controlled and artificial circumstances it took months for infectious badgers to pass the TB onto calves, even though both badgers and calves were sharing a small and highly restricted living space.

There have been no other such attempts, and later research has since demonstrated that badgers avoid cattle, and that cattle avoid areas where badger might urinate or defecate. There is no science, no evidence, to prove how badgers are supposed to pass TB to cattle.

The Randomised Badger Culling Trials are explored in depth, yet even here Dyer shows how the science gives way to politics. Despite the conclusion that culling badgers could make “no meaningful difference” to controlling TB in cattle, the results were, said the head of the RBCT Lord Krebs, “cherry picked” and skewed in order to justify a cull.

The President of the Royal Society Lord May went further and said the government were “transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

Only politically did the badger cull make any sense

Dyer’s documentation of the political process underlying Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision – and yes, it was his decision – to implement the culls is thorough, detailed and depressing in the government’s refusal to accept the lack of science. As Dyer explains, Cameron’s acceptance was all on the side of receiving rural votes in exchange for a cull.

Of all the strands that created the cull – the politicians, Defra, the NFU and Countryside Alliance, the farmers, scientists, vets, landowners and the hunting community about whom he writes, the clarity diplomatically masking the anger – which of those does Dyer think bears the most responsibility for the culls taking place?

“I think the Veterinary industry is most to blame. For a profession that puts scientific knowledge and animal welfare at the heart of what it stands for, the continued support for the hugely cruel ineffective badger cull is unforgivable in my mind.”

But apart from Cameron, who else could have stopped this useless brutal policy? It was, he felt …

” … the BVA which should have called for a stop to the cull when its Ethics Committee decided free shooting was cruel and ineffective. If they had made it clear that they would no longer support any culling using free shooting the policy would have collapsed on cost grounds.”

He is also scathing of some of the big ‘green’ NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and WWF that did not get engaged or mobilise their thousands of members to add to the political pressure on Cameron’s government.

Yet, at the same time, there are many vets and farmers who are against culling. Asked whether he thought farmers had been let down by Defra and the NFU, Dyer replied:

“Yes, many farmers contact me regularly to say they feel let down by the NFU; they know the TB testing systems are not fit for purpose, they are angry about not getting free access to gamma interferon testing and the delays in introducing a TB cattle vaccine.

“And they know the badger cull is being used as a political football whilst many of them struggle to stay in business.”

Short term economics and politics trumped the protection of nature

Asked to expand on that, he explained: “Science will always be manipulated by politicians to support their priorities. Money on the other hand is always a deciding factor in the success or failure of a policy.

“The government always stated the badger cull would be a farmer-led policy largely paid for by farmers. They lied; it’s a largely publicly funded policy that is spiralling out of control on cost grounds despite being a scientific failure.”

The book’s conclusion is that the culls will be stopped, not by science or validity, but by cost. Yet Dyer remains optimistic: “Despite all the incompetence, negligence and deceit, it’s the caring compassionate British public who have made a stand for wildlife that gives me the most hope for the future.”

His book pays tribute to the ‘Badger Army’, those many individuals from all walks of life who turned out to protest and importantly, once culling started, to protect the badgers out in the field.

Those people will be patrolling the countryside, day and night, in every area where badger killing is taking place this autumn. While determined to protect their badgers, many also want to see the government help and support farmers to beat the TB in their cattle – but with proper cattle-based measures, not by senselessly killing wildlife.

Badgered to Death is for them because it tells them just why they must keep fighting the culls. It will convince any reader how very wrong and ineffective the culls will prove to be.

And it should be read by all those battling against government policies that put money ahead of science and the environment. Our natural world is too important to be over-ridden in this way.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites. 

The book: Badgered to Death is by Dominic Dyer and published by Canbury Press.

The BBC and other media are reporting that the shooting of badgers will begin in early September in five new areas: South Devon, North Devon, North Cornwall, West Dorset, and South Herefordshire.

However there has been no such announcement from Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is responsible for the badger culls, or its controversial Secretary of State, former Tory leadership contender and Brexit campaigner Andrea Leadsom.

A spokesman for Defra would only say the department was “currently considering applications for further badger control licences as part of the usual licensing process.”

The badger culling policy in England is led by the National Farmers Union (NFU), but largely funded by taxpayers. It is already being carried out in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset at a cost to the taxpayer in excess of £25 million since it began in 2013. The NFU has also released no announcement.

By extending the badger culls to the five new areas of the country taxpayer will be liable for an additional £100 million by 2020, according to the Badger Trust. That’s even though there is no scientific evidence to show how, or indeed whether, badgers actually infect cattle with bovine TB – the official justification for the policy.

Indeed DEFRA statistics show that despite killing thousands of badgers the number of cattle slaughtered for TB continues to rise both in and around the culling zones. Bovine TB is being successfully controlled in Scotland and Wales without culling, relying instead on cattle movement controls and other biosecurity measures.

Ireland is also about to abandon its badger cull policy in favour of vaccination.

Ignoring the real cause: cattle to cattle infection

The Badger Trust has condemned the apparent decision to press ahead with the cull, citing “the complete failure of the policy over the last four years.” So far 3,916 badgers have been killed – and most remarkably, none of the badger carcasses have been tested for TB, throwing away a valuable opportunity to assess any role badgers may have as a TB reservoir.

“After 4 years of badger culling no one can now doubt that the policy has been a disastrous failure on scientific, cost and humaneness grounds”, said Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust. “For the new DEFRA Secretary Andrea Leadsom to ignore the facts and extend this policy into five new areas of the country defies belief. 

“The badger cull is built on three pillars of sand, incompetence, negligence and deceit, and will ultimately collapse because it fails to address the key cause of bovine TB, which is cattle to cattle infection. We could kill every badger in England but bovine TB would continue to spread in cattle herds, due to inaccurate TB testing, excessive numbers of cattle movements and poor biosecurity controls.”

He also condemned the use of the experimental ‘free shooting’ method of killing badgers, which can result in unrecorded hits that can condemn badgers to a slow, painful, lingering death. This practice has been condemned as inhumane by both the government’s Independent Expert Panel and the British Veterinary Association.

Any pretence of ‘science’ long since abandoned

The Chair of the Badger Trust, Peter Martin, added: “The badger is being used as a scapegoat for failures in the modern intensive livestock industry that have led to a significant increase in bovine TB in cattle herds.

“Recent changes to the cull licencing regime have made it clear this policy is now just a ‘numbers game’ based on indiscriminate and untargeted killing of this protected wildlife species. They have abandoned any pretence of science or control.

“We now have conclusive scientific evidence proving beyond doubt that badgers actively avoid cattle in pasture and farm yards, and that cattle avoid feeding on grass where badgers urinate or defecate. This effectively means that the likelihood of badgers passing TB to cattle within the farming environment is so low that it is impossible to distinguish it from any other potential environmental vector, including cattle themselves.”

The government in Westminster is using badgers as a “political fig-leaf to mask its total failure to get to grips with bovine TB”, Martin continued, adding that the government should be following the far more successful example of Wales, which has achieved significant disease reductions in cattle without killing badgers:

“They should be looking to Wales to see how they have waged a far more successful campaign against the disease, based on more rigorous TB testing, tighter cattle control and biosecurity measures. New TB herd incidents in Wales are down by 14% in the last 12 months and all this has been achieved without culling badgers.”

Oliver Tickell is Contributing Editor at The Ecologist.

“Political factors will ultimately overrule scientific ones when a government takes a decision in a contentious field.” Nature, 2007

Dyer is the Chief Executive of the Badger Trust charity. Everyone who has joined in anti-badger-cull marches and rallies across the country will be familiar with the man leading from the front – whose passionate speeches in defence of one of our most iconic wild animals have constantly condemned the lack of science behind the killing.

Dyer’s first encounter with a badger was on the Isle of Wight. Years later, to his amazement, he saw one happily living in London suburbs. This badger helped his decision to leave a well-paid career and take up full-time work for wildlife conservation.

But why did he become such a champion for the badger?

“Over a period of time I became increasingly angry about the demonisation of the badger. I remember attending many farm industry events during my time in the food and plant science industries where farmers would regularly talk of the need to kill the animal, even discussing how to gas them. And I disliked the way the science and animal welfare concerns were dismissed in a mad rush to kill these animals.”

Being the CEO of the Badger Trust has given him many opportunities to study badgers, and as he says, “The more you get to see them in the wild the more enchanting they become. It does not take long to become hooked as a badger watcher.”

One also, of course, becomes more aware of the lack of science behind badger culling, and it is this devastating lack that Badgered to Death addresses.

Considering how long and complicated the history of badgers and bovine TB is, this could have been a dense and difficult undertaking. But this is not a book filled with references to learned papers and obtuse scientific arguments. Dyer simply and clearly describes the political process by which the badger became the scapegoat for the bovine tuberculosis in England’s cattle.

From the moment the first bovine TB-infected badger was discovered in 1971, no other cause for this disease in cattle has been properly or adequately addressed.

Scientists were saying it was very difficult for badgers to spread TB to cattle

He describes in some detail the experiment carried out by the Central Veterinary Laboratories in 1975, attempting to prove how badgers can give cattle TB. Under very controlled and artificial circumstances it took months for infectious badgers to pass the TB onto calves, even though both badgers and calves were sharing a small and highly restricted living space.

There have been no other such attempts, and later research has since demonstrated that badgers avoid cattle, and that cattle avoid areas where badger might urinate or defecate. There is no science, no evidence, to prove how badgers are supposed to pass TB to cattle.

The Randomised Badger Culling Trials are explored in depth, yet even here Dyer shows how the science gives way to politics. Despite the conclusion that culling badgers could make “no meaningful difference” to controlling TB in cattle, the results were, said the head of the RBCT Lord Krebs, “cherry picked” and skewed in order to justify a cull.

The President of the Royal Society Lord May went further and said the government were “transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”

Only politically did the badger cull make any sense

Dyer’s documentation of the political process underlying Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision – and yes, it was his decision – to implement the culls is thorough, detailed and depressing in the government’s refusal to accept the lack of science. As Dyer explains, Cameron’s acceptance was all on the side of receiving rural votes in exchange for a cull.

Of all the strands that created the cull – the politicians, Defra, the NFU and Countryside Alliance, the farmers, scientists, vets, landowners and the hunting community about whom he writes, the clarity diplomatically masking the anger – which of those does Dyer think bears the most responsibility for the culls taking place?

“I think the Veterinary industry is most to blame. For a profession that puts scientific knowledge and animal welfare at the heart of what it stands for, the continued support for the hugely cruel ineffective badger cull is unforgivable in my mind.”

But apart from Cameron, who else could have stopped this useless brutal policy? It was, he felt …

” … the BVA which should have called for a stop to the cull when its Ethics Committee decided free shooting was cruel and ineffective. If they had made it clear that they would no longer support any culling using free shooting the policy would have collapsed on cost grounds.”

He is also scathing of some of the big ‘green’ NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and WWF that did not get engaged or mobilise their thousands of members to add to the political pressure on Cameron’s government.

Yet, at the same time, there are many vets and farmers who are against culling. Asked whether he thought farmers had been let down by Defra and the NFU, Dyer replied:

“Yes, many farmers contact me regularly to say they feel let down by the NFU; they know the TB testing systems are not fit for purpose, they are angry about not getting free access to gamma interferon testing and the delays in introducing a TB cattle vaccine.

“And they know the badger cull is being used as a political football whilst many of them struggle to stay in business.”

Short term economics and politics trumped the protection of nature

Asked to expand on that, he explained: “Science will always be manipulated by politicians to support their priorities. Money on the other hand is always a deciding factor in the success or failure of a policy.

“The government always stated the badger cull would be a farmer-led policy largely paid for by farmers. They lied; it’s a largely publicly funded policy that is spiralling out of control on cost grounds despite being a scientific failure.”

The book’s conclusion is that the culls will be stopped, not by science or validity, but by cost. Yet Dyer remains optimistic: “Despite all the incompetence, negligence and deceit, it’s the caring compassionate British public who have made a stand for wildlife that gives me the most hope for the future.”

His book pays tribute to the ‘Badger Army’, those many individuals from all walks of life who turned out to protest and importantly, once culling started, to protect the badgers out in the field.

Those people will be patrolling the countryside, day and night, in every area where badger killing is taking place this autumn. While determined to protect their badgers, many also want to see the government help and support farmers to beat the TB in their cattle – but with proper cattle-based measures, not by senselessly killing wildlife.

Badgered to Death is for them because it tells them just why they must keep fighting the culls. It will convince any reader how very wrong and ineffective the culls will prove to be.

And it should be read by all those battling against government policies that put money ahead of science and the environment. Our natural world is too important to be over-ridden in this way.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites. 

The book: Badgered to Death is by Dominic Dyer and published by Canbury Press.