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British research challenges Ireland’s “ruthless” badger cull

Ireland’s policy of snaring thousands of badgers to control bovine TB in cattle is today challenged by the publication of ten years’ and €50 million-worth of detailed scientific research in Great Britain.
 
In a final report[1], the British Government’s Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on bovine tuberculosis (TB) says: “Badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain.”  Instead, the scientists advise that: “[TB] can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone”.
 
Badgerwatch Ireland says the report will be challenging reading for John Gormley TD, the Green Party member appointed as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government on Thursday 14 June 2007.  Mr. Gormley has inherited Ireland’s ruthless badger culling policy and will have to decide if it is “meaningful” and, more importantly, economically justified.
 
Bernie Barrett, from Badgerwatch Ireland, commented:  “Last month, in a report produced with the UK’s Badger Trust, we revealed that badgers are ruthlessly exterminated in our beautiful countryside as a scapegoat for a disease largely spread by cattle[2].  This latest, robust research in Great Britain exposes critical flaws in Ireland’s approach to bovine TB control. 
 
“The Green Party’s first principle is that ‘The impact of society on the environment should not be ecologically disruptive.[3]’  We sincerely hope that John Gormley will now demonstrate his commitment to his principles by immediately suspending badger culling in Ireland and instituting a critical review of current policy by genuinely independent scientific experts.”
 
The proportion of cattle in the Irish national herd infected with bovine TB is currently twice that in Britain, even though badgers have been systematically killed in the Irish countryside for more than 20 years.  The number of TB reactors in Ireland rose to from 27,000 in 1996 to more than 45,000 in 1999 – an increase of 166 per cent – when pre-movement testing for cattle was suspended whilst badger culling continued.
 
Mary Coughlan, Ireland’s previous agriculture minister, justified badger culling with the results of the ‘Four Areas Study’ (FAS)[4], in which badgers were intensively snared in “removal areas” in Cork, Donegal, Kilkenny and Monaghan and reactively snared in nearby “reference areas”.  Intensive snaring has since been extended to 30 per cent of Ireland’s agricultural land.
 
But the British scientists claim that the absence of a “scientific control” (in which no snaring was undertaken) in the FAS may have “over-estimated the beneficial effects of culling over the areas actually subjected to culling [p116]”.  It may also have “[inflated] the difference in incidence between removal and reference areas” and consequently made “widespread culling appear more beneficial than it, in fact, was [p117]”. 
 
Diplomatically, the British scientists do not accuse Irish scientists of being “wrong”.  But they add that “the greater reductions in cattle TB incidence reported from Ireland’s Four Areas Trial may in part reflect the deliberate siting of culling areas in locations with badger-impermeable boundaries [p166]”.  Such boundaries are not typical of Ireland as a whole, suggesting that badger culling elsewhere is unlikely to be nearly as effective as the FAS suggests.
 
The British scientists also reveal that badger sett density in Ireland was only 40 per cent of that in Britain when intensive culling began [p79], whilst the badger population density was only 28 per cent of that in England [p80].
 
Bernie Barrett concluded:  “Why is it that with badger densities at least four times higher than our own, TB infection in Britain’s national herd is half that in Ireland?  The answer is because here, we have poorer controls on TB in cattle because previous Governments have been afraid to impose proper testing mechanisms on the powerful farming lobby.  Ireland’s tax payers have been paying through the nose for that policy error for decades, in wasted compensation to farmers.”
 
The British report is the culmination of ten years of scientific research costing £50 million.  Its results have been published in the world’s leading scientific journals – Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
 

The team of scientists from Britain’s top universities concludes that “badgers contribute significantly to the disease in cattle”.  However, “[badger
culling] policies under consideration are likely to make matters worse rather than better”. 
 
The scientists point out that only 14 new cases of TB were prevented in herds, despite five years of “coordinated and sustained” badger culling across 1,000km2 [p21] that removed approximately 73 per cent of the badgers [p69].  The “small beneficial effect on the incidence of TB” results in a cost-benefit analysis which shows that “it seems unlikely [that culling] would be worthwhile under any economic conditions” [p159].
 
Instead, the ISG advises that “substantial reductions” in TB can be achieved by improving cattle-based control measures:  “Such measures include the introduction of more thorough controls on cattle movement through zoning or herd attestation, strategic use of the IFN [gamma interferon blood] test in both routine and pre-movement testing, quarantine of purchased cattle, shorter testing intervals, careful attention to breakdowns in areas that are currently low risk, and whole herd slaughter for chronically affected herds” [p21 and Chapters 7 and 10].
 
Trevor Lawson, spokesperson for the Badger Trust in the UK, said: “The science makes it clear that killing badgers is a sledgehammer to crack a nut – it does a lot more harm than good.
 
We need a less brutish approach to the small role played by badgers.  Simple measures, such as electric fencing around farm buildings, might well yield greater benefits at a fraction of the cost.
 
“Controlling TB in cattle will also reduce TB in badgers.  That reduces the risk to cattle even further [p21].  These are constructive, win-win solutions that are good for farming, for wildlife and for tax payers.  The challenge is for farmers and vets to have the common sense to buy into them.”

Notes to editors:

For further comment from Badgerwatch Ireland, contact Bernie Barrett on 051 373876 or 087-939394096.

For comment from the Badger Trust, contact Trevor Lawson on 00 44 (0) 7976 262388.

1.  Bourne, J. et al (2007), Bovine TB: The Scientific Evidence - A Science Base for a Sustainable Policy to Control TB in Cattle; An Epidemiological Investigation into Bovine Tuberculosis, Final Report of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB Defra, London.  The report will be available online on Monday 18 June from 09.30am, at

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/isg/index.htm

2. Ireland’s Bloody Shame, available online at http://www.badgertrust.org.uk/_Attachments/Resources/13_S4.pdf

The final ISG report – control of cattle TB control

Badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain, the Government’s Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on bovine tuberculosis (bTB) said, in its final report [1] which has been welcomed by the Badger Trust. Instead, the scientists advise that: [bTB] can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone.

The report is the culmination of ten years of scientific research, costing £50 million. Almost 11,000 badgers were killed in the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), also known as the Krebs trial after Professor Sir John Krebs who proposed it.

The team of scientists, from Britain’s top universities, concludes that although badgers contribute to cattle TB, [culling] policies under consideration are likely to make matters worse rather than better.

The scientists point out that only 14 new cases of bTB were prevented in herds, despite five years of coordinated and sustained badger culling across 1,000km2 [1, p21] that removed approximately 73 per cent of the badgers [1, p69]. The small beneficial effect on the incidence of TB results in a cost-benefit analysis which shows that it seems unlikely [that culling] would be worthwhile under any economic conditions? [1, p159].

Instead, the ISG advises that substantial reductions in TB can be achieved by improving cattle-based control measures: Such measures include the introduction of more thorough controls on cattle movement through zoning or herd attestation, strategic use of the IFN [gamma interferon blood] test in both routine and pre-movement testing, quarantine of purchased cattle, shorter testing intervals, careful attention to breakdowns in areas that are currently low risk, and whole herd slaughter for chronically affected herds [1, p21 and Chapters 7 and 10].

Trevor Lawson, spokesperson for the Badger Trust, said: Killing badgers is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, doing far more harm than good. A less brutish approach to the small role played by badgers, such as electric fencing around farm buildings, might well yield greater benefits at a fraction of the cost.

Controlling TB in cattle will reduce TB in badgers, further reducing the risk to cattle [1, p21]. These are constructive, win-win solutions that are good for farming, for wildlife and for tax payers. The challenge now is for farmers and vets to see the sense of implementing them.

The Government now has the sound science that it promised to base its TB policy on. The ISG’s research has been rubber-stamped by the world’s leading scientists in the world’s leading peer-reviewed journals.

The challenge for the new Secretary of State is to implement effective TB controls on cattle without plunging farmers into bankruptcy. Constructive support measures for farmers will be essential, because there are thousands of undiagnosed, infected cattle out there. Removing them will mean medium-term pain for the Treasury and significant difficulties for a minority of farmers. But the science is crystal clear: that is the only way forwards.

1. Bourne, J. et al (2007), Bovine TB: The Scientific Evidence - A Science Base for a Sustainable Policy to Control TB in Cattle; An Epidemiological Investigation into Bovine Tuberculosis, Final Report of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB Defra, London. The report is available online on at
2. http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/isg/index.htm

Last Updated: Sunday, 24 June 2007, 15:14 GMT 16:14 UK

Science chief urges badger cull