Modelling research by a team at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has found that culling badgers only has a tiny impact on the incidence of disease.

The researchers, who looked at control strategies including badger culling, cattle testing, controlling cattle movement, and ceasing the practice of housing farm cattle together during winter, published the results of their work on Wednesday.

The computer modelling found that in a region containing about 1.5m cows (of which 3,000 to 15,000 might have TB) a policy of badger culling resulted in just 12 fewer cases of the disease. More frequent testing, on the other hand, led to 193 fewer infections. This, the researchers said, could eventually lead to the reduction of the disease (whether badgers were culled or not), even given that the test currently being used is at most 80 percent accurate.

The researchers said badger culling is "Unlikely to be a successful control strategy."

The model also suggested that housing cattle in large sheds over winter could potentially double the number of infected animals in a herd, as under such conditions there is a much greater chance of TB being passed between cows.

QMUL professor Matthew Evans said the findings were produced by the first ever large-scale model of TB in cattle and badgers, which factored in the possibility of the infection being passed in both directions between the two species, and changing patterns of the disease.

The Ecology professor said, "Of the available Bovine Tuberculosis control strategies we believe that how frequently cattle are tested and whether or not farms utilise winter housing have the most significant effect on the number of infected cattle."

Prof Evans continued, "TB is a complex disease and modelling it is difficult but we've successfully used our model to replicate real world situations and are confident that it can be used to predict the effects of various changes in the way we tackle the disease."

The professor said the Queen Mary's research "Provides compelling evidence, for those charged with controlling Bovine TB, that investment in increasing the frequency of cattle testing is a far more effective strategy than badger culling."

Culling badgers as part of the government's bovine TB eradication strategy has been a hugely controversial and costly experiment. Although the government still has the support of the NFU and the tenuous backing of the British Veterinary Association, many independent vets and scientists have come out against the policy.

Self-set targets have been missed in both years of the two pilot culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire.