Breaking the wall of silence surrounding trial badger culls, which began in Somerset in late August and Gloucestershire earlier this month, dairy farmer and local councillor Derek Mead has claimed the West Somerset badger cull could be falling way short of its targets.

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The North Somerset Councillor told Western Morning News that in the Exmoor area only a "handful of badgers" had been shot, despite Environment Secretary Owen Paterson's assurances that the operation was proceeding according to plan. Mead claimed that, by Wednesday, the total number of badgers that had been killed was well below 100 and that the area's cull company is desperate to recruit more markspeople.

If Mead's information proves to be true, the pilots could fail the 'effectiveness' test set by the Government, which would jeopardise further roll-out of the culls in their current form. Defra Secretary Paterson has already made clear his intention to extend culling to new areas as soon as next year.

Defra has refused to comment on the progress of culling, and other than Owen Paterson's statement in Parliament last week very little information is available. The NFU, too, is keeping tight lipped, though a spokesperson said that speculation the cull could be failing is "premature".

Nevertheless, more than two weeks of the six-week culling window have now passed and, in West Somerset, shooters have to meet targets of over 50 badgers each day in order to fulfil the terms of the cull licence. In all between 2,081 and 2,162 badgers must be killed over six weeks (or 70 per cent of the estimated local population).

Killing started in Somerset on August 26th and in Gloucestershire a few days later. The trials are experimenting with the previously untested method of free-shooting badgers by night; Defra chose this option over the more reliable caged-shooting as it is significantly cheaper, but if the sources of leaks are to be believed, the new methodology is proving problematic.

Ahead of the trials the Government said that, if targets were not met, it would insist on farmers' organisations paying for cage trapping and shooting – likely to be ten times as expensive – over the full four-year culling programme.

Defra not taking over badger cull

On Friday, the Guardian reported that Defra may seek legal advice on taking control from the cull companies due to the reportedly poor success rate. Defra refute this saying "There have been no discussions or considerations about Defra taking over the badger cull pilots. The pilots are being carried out by licensed companies and this will not change." Defra has also allegedly discussed gassing badgers, a method of killing last used in the early 1980s, but which was shelved as it was deemed to be inhumane. Since that time, farmers critical of the 'big society cull', including Derek Mead, have recommended bringing back gassing to kill badgers more effectively. 

However, although ministers have reportedly discussed resurrecting the outlawed method in order to salvage their policy, decriminalising gassing with cyanide for use on a protected species may prove to be the final nail in the coffin of a policy which, since its inception, has proven to be a protracted PR disaster.

The Guardian's source told the newspaper that the failure of a cull would make the aborted forest sell-off, the mishandling of which contributed to former Defra secretary Caroline Spelman's replacement by Owen Paterson, seem relatively painless by comparison "because every problem so far [encountered] was first outlined in briefings and advice to ministers and ignored."

Campaigners lament lack of transparency

Whilst anti-cull campaigners have called for greater transparency or demanded the cull be scrapped in light of the apparent failings, the level of secrecy shrouding the cull has also begun to attract official criticism. Following a dispute over the release of documents between Defra and Humane Society International, the Information Commissioner's Office gave DEFRA 35 days to publish the uncensored version of a document relating to its testing for humaneness –one of the criteria on which trial culls will be judged – which the ICO ruled had been subject to unjustified redaction by Defra.  The deadline passed on Tuesday (10th September), but Defra has still not released the full document. 

Mark Jones, veterinarian and Executive Director of HSI UK, commented earlier this week, "The Information Commissioner has seen the full humaneness document and concluded that DEFRA was wrong to hide behind the Environmental Information Regulations to avoid disclosure, so it is outrageous that DEFRA has treated that ruling with arrogant dismissal.

"DEFRA has used every cynical tactic in the book to prevent disclosure of the methods and criteria it will use to assess humaneness in the pilot culls. We can only assume it knows that independent scrutiny would find the methodology to be full of holes in exactly the same way that eminent scientists have declared the cull to be nothing more than a 'costly distraction'. The vast majority of shooting appears to be taking place without any monitoring whatsoever… and nobody outside of DEFRA's internal team has been allowed to examine or question its methods."

The Badger Trust has also criticised the government for attempting to justify its divisive policy by stating that "in the last 10 years the disease cost the taxpayer £500 million and it is estimated that it will rise to £1 billion if the disease is left unchecked." On Thursday, the Trust said, "The inference, always, is that badgers are to blame. In reality… most of the costs can be put down to cattle mismanagement, cattle-to-cattle transmission, recurring cattle-to-badger infection and Defra's lamentable failure to introduce much needed cattle-based measures early enough."

The Trust also pointed out that, by Defra's own reckoning, culling will only reduce bovine TB by 12-16 per cent over nine years in zones where it is carried out.