I’m seeing a lot of anger and disappointment in badger circles today that the badger cull is ending, but not ending fast enough. Apologies for the long thread 🧵, but tet me explain why I think the news is the best it could be 1/25 First, some background. Remember, the culls were licensed with the intention of controlling cattle TB. You don’t have to spend much time around cattle farmers to see the impact TB has on their businesses and their mental health 2/25

For once a little GOOD NEWS about bovine tuberculosis control for UK farmers 🐄🦡💉! I'm proud to share our latest paper, you can read it for free here: 1/19besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10… For UK cattle farmers, bovine TB is a source of near-constant stress and occasional (too often) devastation. Everyone wants it eradicated. But achieving eradication is difficult, in part because badgers can become infected, and re-infect cattle 2/19

What does today's news of the "beginning of the end" of badger culling mean, in terms of badgers still to be killed? I had a go at estimating the likely trajectories. A thread... 1/9 Defra is consulting on an intention to issue no new culling licences after 2022, and to limit new supplementary culling licences to 2 years consult.defra.gov.uk/bovine-tb-2020… 2/9

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)

So many questions about this story, starting with: What measures does @NaturalEngland have in place to check that badgers submitted during culls come from the cull zones, from cull periods? cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-… The risk of shooters "beefing up" the numbers by submitting road kills, or adding in badgers shot elsewhere, has been known since the first pilot culls, when badgers subject to PM included 1 that was never shot, and 1 that was shot when already dead assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

Today I published a paper - not headline-grabbing or especially policy-relevant - but I'm proud of it because it solves a problem I've wanted to understand for years: how African wild dog populations work Wild dogs are highly social. So social it was thought that small packs could not survive. Hence any threat which reduced pack size could cause population extinction.