Natural England, the government’s controversial choice of cull licensing authority, has issued a second license to a company of farmers wishing to carry out a cull in Somerset.

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On Thursday (4th October) Natural England issued a license to a specially formed company of farmers and landowners to kill badgers over a six week period across 250sq km as part of its programme of ‘trial culls’. Two trial culls, one in Gloucester which was green lighted last month and the Somerset cull, are set to go ahead in a bid to combat bovine TB in England.

However, serious concerns have been raised over whether or not culling will prove effective. Organisations and individuals including the RSPCA and many of the experts who worked on the formative Randomised Badger Culling Trials have said the cull will prove ineffective, inhumane and expensive.

Defra maintains that "Nobody wants to cull badgers. But no country in the world where wildlife carries TB has eradicated the disease in cattle without tackling it in wildlife too." However, the Badger Trust has pointed out that a bTB outbreak in the UK was successfully controlled after the Second World War without recourse to killing wildlife and the relaxation of cattle control measures several years ago coincided with a rise in bTB levels.

Last week documents released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed senior police officers have expressed grave misgivings about the cull’s potential to precipitate a rise in wildlife persecution (which the Badger Trust suggests has already begun) and potential risks to public safety from ‘free shooting’ badgers at night, with protestors or others likely in the vicinity.

However, the findings of a European Commission audit from 2011, which showed farmers habitually breach biosecurity measures intended to prevent the spread of bovine TB between cattle, will come as a shock, but perhaps not a surprise. Last year, undercover investigators filmed the widespread violation of biosecurity measures at a number of Welsh cattle markets as the then Welsh Assembly Government was preparing to green light a badger cull in the country’s Intensive Action Area.

At the beginning of the year the Welsh government announced it would drop its plans to cull badgers and begin a programme of vaccination in the IAA following a review of the science.

The report, available here, was initially released quietly, but has been picked up by the Guardian. It was compiled as part of an assessment of the UK’s bTB eradication policy. Investigators examined the UK’s approach to bTB during September 2011. They concluded that, despite the high priority accorded to bTB in the Defra budget (40 percent of animal health spending), there are drastic shortcomings in biosecurity measures in place.

Amongst the weaknesses identified by the Commission, authors found that exemptions, incomplete herd testing and a raft of other occurrences are weakening attempts to control bovine TB. The authors said targets are repeatedly missed for removing TB reactor cattle with sufficient rapidity and repeating missed tests.

They suggested that control measures are fragmented, as a number of responsible bodies and a lack of co-ordination between different stakeholders (especially Local Authorities) “makes it difficult to ensure that basic practices to prevent infection/spread of disease (such as effective cleaning and disinfection of vehicles and markets) are carried out in a satisfactory way.”

Most damningly of all, the report revealed local authorities had evidence of ear tag switching, whereby TB positive animals had been retained in a herd, whilst a less productive animal was sent for slaughter as a reactor. The auditors said, "Local authority surveys provided evidence that some cattle farmers may have been illegally swapping cattle ear tags.”

The Commission authors said that, in response to their findings, the UK’s ’Competent Authorities’ maintained that delays to its policy of badger culling, “which is a significant element of the approved eradication programme, remain the major obstacle to progress.”

Cull opponents have called for tighter biosecurity measures and vaccination programmes to control bovine TB. Even Defra’s scientific advisors concluded “vaccination in an area could reduce the disease level in the local badger population and thus the risk to local cattle from badger-to-cattle transmission. In addition, vaccination is highly unlikely to have negative effects.”

On Friday, David Williams, chair of the Badger Trust, said, “The idea of culling is an outdated prejudice when the real problem, as it always has been, is cattle. The audit highlights the scandal of overdue tests and the need for prompt removal of infected cattle and inconclusive reactors from farms.

"The group has clearly spent much time and effort on the cattle aspects, but has not re-investigated matters concerning badgers to the same degree, leading to a lack of balance. The reference to the delay in culling as a 'major' obstacle is grossly overstated”.

Defra maintains its cattle control measures have been strengthened in the wake of the report, and said the government accepted the inspectors’ findings.

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