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Badgers and bovine tuberculosis

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The problem is two fold:

  1. Since the badger was made a protected species in 1973 the population has been expanding out of control until it is now a serious agricultural and domestic pest in many parts of the country simply from the damage that it does by digging.
  2. A large proportion of badgers, up to 30% in some areas in the SW and W.Midlands, are endemically infected with bovine TB and excreting vast numbers of infectious tubercle bacilli into the agricultural environment.

This combination has led to a steep rise in the incidence of TB reactors in cattle, up 18-20% year on year since 1986 and the rate is still rising and spreading in parallel with the expanding badger population.

The badger, a species without natural predators, is a classic example of a population out of control.

Badgers suffer a painful and protracted death from TB. They also suffer from the adverse effects of overpopulation, namely loss of territory, fighting, wounding, road accidents, lack of food, starvation.

The badger population urgently needs to be brought under control for the sake of the badgers themselves, cattle and cattle farmers, other wildlife e.g. ground nesting birds and not least because of the hazard from TB to man and other wild and domestic animals.

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All the scientific evidence since 1971 when bovine TB was first discovered in badgers and the subsequent field trials at Thornbury, Steeple Leaze, the Hartland peninsular, East Offaly and most recently the Irish Four Counties Trial point to the badger as the major wildlife reservoir for bovine TB.

The Krebs report concluded in 1997 that the evidence linking badgers to the spread of bovine TB was compelling

Failure to control TB in badgers has inevitably resulted in spill over into other wild life

Nationwide control of the badger population by farmers and local landowners should immediately be implemented

Vaccination of cattle and badgers is not a realistic proposition in the short term for controlling TB

Strategic culling of badgers in areas of endemic infection is the only realistic method of controlling the disease in both badgers and cattle

Non lethal (artificial) methods of control are impractical and unnecessary for tackling the problem of population control

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The Quarry Species