As the Welsh Assembly debates a proposed cull of badgers as part of a programme to eradicate bovine TB, the National Trust – which has 50,000 hectares of land in Wales - has expressed concerns about the proposed cull’s likely effectiveness and scientific rigour.
Iwan Huws, the National Trust’s Director for Wales, says,
'We feel that a targeted badger cull in an ‘intensive action pilot area’ would be counter productive and would not make a major contribution to controlling bovine TB in cattle. The National Trust is not against the culling of badgers per se, but the purpose of the cull needs to be clear and the measure effective, and based on the findings of the Independent Science Group (ISG)'
The best route to tackling bovine TB in cattle is to introduce a package of control measures from those recommended in the report published by the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee in February. These measures include steps to improve cattle surveillance and control and support for the GB vaccination programme which together we believe offer the most sustainable solution to controlling bovine TB in cattle.
To be a success any cull would need to meet the requirements set out by the ISG. The big stumbling block is that there is no suitably bounded area of Wales which is large enough to meet the ISG criteria. This is why the National Trust would be unlikely to participate in a voluntary cull on land that we manage directly. A particular concern, based on the experience of the Krebs trial, is that a failure to remove all badgers in the pilot area could result in an increased occurrence of bovine TB in cattle. This is because of a perturbation effect whereby badgers that survive the cull become more mobile and could spread the disease to other badgers and cattle. Culls of badgers could have a detrimental impact on farmers including National Trust tenants.
The introduction of a range of control measures at the same time as a pilot would make it difficult to assess which is the most effective means of controlling bovine TB in cattle. There is also a need to clarify what is meant by the pilot action being subject to ecological reviews, ethical considerations, epidemiological assessments, practical implementation and legal requirements. These criteria are likely to be fundamental in assessing whether a cull would go ahead and there needs to be re-assurance that any cull would only happen if these are met.
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Statement on badgers and culling
The National Trust welcomes the EFRA Select Committee’s conclusions that a multi-faceted approach should be adopted to tackle cattle TB. We support the strategic approach proposed to include:
- 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 biosecurity measures;
- the deployment of badger and cattle vaccines when they become available in the future; and
- continued work on the epidemiology of the disease.
With regard to any proposal to cull badgers as a means of controlling cattle TB, we are not against the culling of badgers per se, but based on the scientific evidence available from the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) we do not believe it is likely to be effective.
From the ISG’s conclusions we are concerned that any significant decline in cattle TB could only be achieved through such large scale and draconian measures to reduce badger numbers as to make the option impractical, unaffordable and publicly unacceptable. Any cull which is less comprehensive than necessary carries a risk of increasing the disease problem.
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