Defra has faced a wave of criticism after it emerged that the department has been conducting lab-based trials into badger gassing.

Defra revealed it is conducting secret trials in its answer to a freedom of information request, launched after the department tweeted in April that "Initial investigations into using gas as a potential method are taking place but this doesn’t include testing on badgers." The department will not reveal where the experiments are taking place, or release any correspondence between its staff and researchers at the testing facility.

Thursday's revelation is the latest embarrassment for the department, raising as it does several questions about the handling of the acutely controversial badger cull.

In October, when the initial six-week culling window came to an end in Somerset, with unsatisfactory results for cull architects at Defra, environment secretary Owen Paterson said the environment department was conducting "desk-based research" into gassing as a means of dispatch. Speaking to Farming Online at the time, a Defra press officer elaborated that this meant the department was reviewing available written information on gassing, which was outlawed in 1982 after it was demonstrated to be an inefficient and inhumane method of killing.

Speaking on Friday morning, a Defra spokesperson suggested the environment secretary had meant "trials not being undertaken in the field" when he spoke about "desk-based research," but acknowledged that there is a clear distinction between 'lab-based' of the type being conducted at the public's expense and 'desk-based research' involving previously published scientific evidence on gassing, of the type a fellow press officer assured was being conducted in October.

The spokesperson added that testing using carbon monoxide gas in mock-ups of badger setts may not yet have started when the statements about desk-based research were made. However, in its Freedom of Information response, Defra clearly states “the trials started in summer 2013.”

Gassing trials: Shooting discredited?

Elaborating on the reasons for conducting research, which critics have suggested further discredits the 'free-shooting' methodology last year's pilot culls were ostensibly set up to trial, the spokesperson said tests were being carried out in line with Defra's 25 year bovine TB strategy, published in March 2013. The Independent Expert Panel assessing the cull concluded that shooting had failed on grounds of effectiveness and humaneness, despite the fact that culls were granted lengthy extensions and more expensive caged-shooting was introduced in both cull zones after just two days.

The Defra spokesperson said, "Initial investigations into the use of gas as a potential culling method are taking place as set out in the 25-year strategy to free England of bovine TB, which includes plans for more sophisticated TB testing, developing cattle and oral badger vaccines, tighter cattle movement controls, badger vaccination in the buffer zone and badger culling in areas where disease is widespread."

The spokesperson added that there is "no indication that gassing could be deployed" and acknowledged that there are still "legal issues" around gassing. They continued, "The investigations do not involve animals and it is not possible to say at this very early stage if or when gassing is likely to be a realistic or humane method of culling."

Illegal gassing

Anti-cull commentators have also warned that the government's forays into gassing, combined with the Defra Secretary's refusal to condemn illegal gassing in the South West, when an investigation uncovered evidence of such killing on at least 14 farms in the region during the official cull, could exacerbate wildlife persecution. Confronted with evidence of illegal gassing in October, Paterson remarked, "That's most unfortunate as it can lead to an extension of the disease."

In November, two dairy farmers from Somerset were convicted of attempting to gas badgers with car exhaust fumes.   

On Friday, the Defra press office claimed that scientific and technological advances justified reinvestigating the gassing method, but Defra's spokesperson would only condemn illegal gassing – including using exhaust fumes – on the grounds that it is unsanctioned and perpetrators are "taking the law into their own hands." The spokesperson said, "Gassing badgers is currently illegal and will not be used in the pilots culls. Any individual taking the law in to their own hands should be reported to the police."

Though Princess Anne came out in favour of gassing in a recent BBC interview, in reality, this week's revelations look set to act as a further drain on the already waning support for the government's cull policy.  

When the environment secretary announced in April that, though badger culling will continue in Somerset and Gloucestershire it will not be rolled-out to new areas, a poll in the Shropshire Star, Mr Paterson's supportive local paper, revealed that in excess of 93 percent of readers were opposed to a cull in the county. Asked the same question in December 2013, 85 percent of readers were opposed.