According to reports in the Sunday Times, there will be a number of developments in the government's controversial badger culling policy this week.

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Culling is set to be extended to Dorset – originally named as a reserve cull zone when pilots were confirmed in Gloucestershire and Somerset in 2012. According to reports from 'Whitehall sources', culling will take place in all three areas this summer.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is also expected to make a statement to Parliament on the findings of the Independent Expert Panel, whose report was due for release at the beginning of the year; it was confirmed that the report had been received by the Defra Secretary on 13th March during a backbench debate on the cull in Parliament.

Leaked findings from the IEP's report revealed earlier this month that experts had found last year's badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire to be inhumane and ineffective based on the government's own criteria. The Parliamentary debate over a text condemning the badger cull and calling on Defra to investigate alternative policies to tackle bovine TB, tabled by Conservative MP Anne Main, ended in a coup for MPs opposed to culling; Main's motion was passed by 219 votes to one.

Defra said the department would be considering the findings of the IEP report before making a decision on culling policy. Once the report is published and the Panel's full findings are known, these and the result of the non-binding Parliamentary vote on 13th March will surely have some effect on the government's granting of further cull licenses.

A spokesperson for licensing body Natural England said on Monday that the decision to extend culling to Dorset was "not our call." The spokesperson said any extension of culling would be the result of a ministerial decision. Cull zones in Somerset and Gloucestershire have been granted four year licenses by Natural England, but a Dorset company would have to be licensed if culling is to go ahead there later in the year.   

Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust, has already speculated that attention will turn to gassing as a means of dispatching badgers in light of the failure of markspeople to reach culling targets last year. Though gassing was outlawed as inhumane in 1982, Owen Paterson acknowledged that Defra had already begun 'desk-based' research into the resurrecting it as a means of culling after trial culls came to an end in the South-West.

On Monday, a Defra spokesperson said that an announcement "had gone out", but added that nothing had been confirmed regarding culling in Dorset. In an official statement, Defra said,
"The Government remains determined to tackle bovine TB by all available means which is why we have outlined a 25 year plan to eradicate this disease by addressing infection in both cattle and wildlife which was debated and approved by Parliament last year. We are considering the findings of the independent expert panel before a decision is made on making further licences to cull badgers available."

Bovine TB levels were not measured in either badgers or cattle in last year's culls. The latest UK figures, released by Defra earlier this month, show that new incidences of the disease fell 4.5 percent in 2013 and the number of cattle slaughtered as a result of bTB control measures dropped by 13.6 percent.