Thread by @RosieWoodroffe

This new announcement consult.defra.gov.uk/bovine-tb-2020… means two more years of new #badgercull licences. In 2019-20 new licences covered an area larger than Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset combined so a lot more badgers could die before culling ends

It also looks as though 2025 would be the last year of large-scale culling. The last new licences would be issued in 2022, so 4 years of culling would run 2022-5 (though culling could be stopped earlier)

The supplementary cull licences issued in 2020 would the last 5-year licences issued (culling 2020-4).

This means that numbers of badgers killed per year would probably peak in 2021-2 (when new cull zones are added and old ones still active) but then tail off. So a lot more badgers still to die, most likely.

Why the delay? There is a widespread view that "doing nothing is not an option". But there are lots of reasons why badger vaccination cannot immediately replace culling as a way to manage badger-to-cattle transmission of TB.

First - vaccinator capacity. At the moment there are not many licensed badger vaccinators, and almost all of them are linked to wildlife groups. Many MANY more need to be trained to cover the massive areas currently covered by culling.

Second - limited evidence. An experiment in RoI showed that vaccination performed no worse than culling in its impact on cattle TB, but there are huge differences between RoI and England in badger ecology.

Despite repeated calls, no such study has been conducted in the UK. Not surprisingly, farmers are asking for evidence of whether vaccination reduces cattle TB. Evidence suggests that it should, but the evidence base is much weaker than it was for culling when that policy started.

So, bringing farmers on board means hurriedly doing some data collection, running pilots, etc, to provide the confidence in the farming community that this approach will help

Signalling a remote eventual end to culling will disappoint many who value nature, and I wouldn't have chosen to start from this point.

But, I do believe that time is needed to establish a vaccine roll-out. Simply telling farmers "you're all vaccinators now" risks an epidemic of illegal (and patchy) badger killing likely to make TB worse, and hence make vaccination look bad.

Could it be better? Yes, it could. There could be clearer plans for the transition period, with a clear justification for why two more years of new cull licences are needed, rather than one, or none.

Also, continuing culling doesn't have to mean continuing free shooting, which experts on animal welfare state (including the BVA) have deemed inhumane. Using cage traps instead would help more farmers prepare for vaccination.

I will post a draft consultation response on my website, when I've written one, and announce that here.

But, to conclude - a timetable for the end of the controversial #badgercull, though not the end itself. Not where I would have ideally wanted to be, but understandable, and moving slowly in the right direction.