Evidence shows that badgers are not the primary cause of the spread of TB in cattle and that the primary route of infection is from cow-to-cow contact – so a vaccine for cattle should be a government priority.

We are very conscious of the hardship that bovine TB (bTB) causes in the farming community and the need to find the right mechanisms to control the disease. However, we believe that a badger cull is not the answer. The scientific evidence demonstrates that culling is likely to be ineffective in fighting the disease and, worse still, risks making the problem even worse. We believe the emphasis of all our efforts should be to find a long-term solution and we are calling for the Government to end its policy of culling badgers.

The Government has failed to develop one for TB. UK Cattle are already vaccinated for up to 16 diseases so why should TB be different?

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food announced in December 2018 that the badger cull has been “effective” in terms of the numbers of badgers culled over the specified area of land. However, we are still waiting for the promised peer-reviewed analysis of the bovine tuberculosis (bTB) incidence data in cattle. Robust evidence is still lacking to demonstrate that the badger cull is worth the loss of thousands of badgers and millions of pounds of public spending.

Read our full Policy Statement here: