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27 February 2008
EFRA Select Committee report on badgers and cattle TB
The Wildlife Trusts’ response
Commenting on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee report on badgers and cattle TB (bTB), Stephanie Hilborne, chief executive for The Wildlife Trusts, said: “This report rightly highlights the need for tighter controls on cattle testing and biosecurity as the way to combat this disease. Far from giving a green light to badger culling, the Committee reinforces the view that badger culling could, in theory, be effective if certain conditions were met. However, we know these conditions are impossible to meet in practice.”
The Wildlife Trusts accept bTB in cattle is a significant problem for farming in the UK and that urgent action is required to combat the disease. The Trusts particularly recognise the important role the livestock industry can play in the environmentally-sensitive management of the countryside and the serious disruption and anxiety caused to farmers experiencing a herd breakdown.
The Wildlife Trusts are pleased the EFRA committee agrees the following measures must be rigorously enforced to control bTB:
- More frequent cattle testing, with more frequent and targeted combined use of the tuberculin skin test and the gamma interferon test
- The evaluation of post-movement cattle testing
- Greater communication with farmers on the benefits of bio-security measures
- The deployment of badger and cattle vaccines, when they become available
- Continued work on the epidemiology of the disease.
However, The Wildlife Trusts believe that the following conditions the report suggests for badger-culling to be effective are impractical:
- Culling would need to be: over large areas (at least 265sq km, nearly the size of the Isle of Wight) – our land ownership is so fragmented that this would be impossible
- For sustained periods of time (at least four years) – it would be impossible to prevent badgers moving into culled areas for this period of time
- Be co-ordinated – co-ordinating culling amongst so many landowners, particularly when some would not support a cull, would be impractical
- Be carried out competently and efficiently – having so many different landowners and managers carrying our culling means it would be impossible to ensure minimum standards of competence or efficiency
- Be undertaken where there are natural boundaries to dispersal – badgers are known to cross man-made natural boundaries such as major roads and waterways
The Independent Scientific Group, set up by Government to look at this issue, concluded that, because they could see no situation where the conditions could be met, culling provides ‘no meaningful contribution’ and is ‘not cost effective’ as a control measure for combating bovine tuberculosis.
Stephanie Hilborne continued: “Now is the time to throw all our weight behind cattle control measures to deal with this disease and not be side-tracked by further discussions of badger culling.”
For further information please contact Anna Guthrie, senior press officer on 01636 670075 or aguthrie [at] wildlifetrusts.org