Although official figures on the number of badgers killed as part of the pilot culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire are yet to be released, a report leaked to the Humane Society International suggests that contractors in Gloucestershire fell short of their target for the second consecutive year, whilst in Somerset markspeople managed to kill the minimum required number of badgers.  

The culls came to an end at noon on Monday, and spokespeople for the cull companies have said they do not expect to seek extensions this year.

A source, said to be from cull licensing body Natural England, revealed to HSI that 253 badgers were killed in Gloucestershire over the six week period (362 animals short of the minimum kill target of 615).

In Somerset, shooters only achieved the minimum target of 315 badgers. HSI claimed that "Kill targets were deliberately set to be achievably low" this year.

Wendy Higgins, a spokesperson for the society said, "We are of course mightily relieved that the shooters failed to kill the target number of badgers in Gloucestershire and didn’t exceed the minimum in Somerset, but every animal who died in the cull is an innocent life wasted for a pointless, unscientific and immoral policy."

Higgins continued, "For the second year in a row the badger cull has been a miserable failure, not simply because it’s proved ineffective but because it remains scientifically discredited and ethically unsupportable. It's time for DEFRA and the NFU to face facts and be honest with both farmers and the public – shooting badgers has been a costly and humiliating distraction that needs to end now. Vaccination, improved farm biosecurity and stricter cattle movement measures are the only way to tackle bovine TB."

Last year, both cull companies failed to meet the target of removing 70 percent of the estimated badger population in the pilot zones; 921 badgers were killed in Gloucestershire and 940 in Somerset.