Commenting on news reports that badger culls are to be carried out in five new areas of England in a bid to control bovine TB, Sean Wensley, President of the British Veterinary Association, said:

“BVA recognises the need to control the wildlife reservoir of disease as part of a comprehensive strategy to eradicate bovine TB. Therefore, control measures in cattle must be accompanied by simultaneous and coordinated control measures in badgers and susceptible farmed species. 

“For these reasons, BVA supports the wider roll-out of culling to carefully selected areas where badgers are regarded as a significant contributor to the high incidence of bovine TB in cattle, through the use of cage trapping and shooting only; we do not support the continued use of controlled shooting as part of the badger control policy.”

Controlled shooting, or 'free-shooting', is the shooting of free-running badgers. It is the methodology which Defra's 'pilot badger culls' were ostensibly set up to trial, though documents have since shown that more expensive caged shooting has been used from the very first year of the trials.