The Badger Trust's legal challenge, launched in May in a bid to delay Defra's highly controversial badger cull, came to an end today.

The Trust was granted a judicial review when it claimed that a lack of independent oversight of the two 'pilot' culls' second phase would mean no decisions could be made on extending culls based on data collected – the government still intends to pursue badger culls elsewhere.  

However, on Friday the Administrative Court ruled that Secretary of State Liz Truss' decision to continue the pilot culls without independent oversight was lawful, and that any assurances that badger culling policy would be independently monitored were not legally binding.   

Earlier this week, cull licensing body Natural England wrote to inform cull companies that shooting can resume in both zones. The licensing body said actual start dates would be decided by the groups undertaking badger culling in the two areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset.  

Badger Trust representatives said they had understood from statements made by Truss' predecessors that an Independent Expert Panel (IEP) would oversee, and analyse the results from, the pilot culls until a final decision was made on whether or not to roll out the culls to new areas. The High Court heard the case on Thursday 21^st August, but a ruling was not handed down until today.

The IEP found that the first year of the pilot culls failed in terms of both effectiveness and humaneness. Even so, Defra plans to continue culling with a view to a future roll-out, but without independent oversight. 

Badger Trust spokesperson Dominic Dyer said the Trust is considering an appeal. Speaking after the ruling on Friday, Dyer said, "This judgment does not detract from the serious public concerns over the continuation of the cull... Given the indisputable failure of the 2013 culls, the still unresolved issues regarding safety and the significant uncertainty over the numbers of badgers to be killed in 2014, the only sensible option for the Secretary of State is to call a halt to these pilots, and the potentially unnecessary and inhumane deaths of hundreds of badgers."  

He continued, "As Counsel for the Trust, David Wolfe QC, observed during the hearing, the Secretary of State is not just moving the goal posts, but has banished the independent referee from the pitch.  Whatever happens during the second year of the culls, in the absence of the IEP, it will be impossible to trust any findings supporting a wider roll out, not least because this is already clearly the preferred option of the Secretary of State."

A Defra spokesperson welcomed the ruling and claimed that government officials had always been clear that the IEP's task was to assess the initial six week cull during the first year. In the event, last year's culls were extended by several weeks in both Somerset and Gloucestershire, though Gloucestershire's extension was cut short when the cage-trapping season came to a close.

The spokesperson said Defra has made changes to monitoring practices in light of the IEP's recommendations.