Petition End the Badger cull and adopt other approaches to bovine TB control

Bovine tuberculosis (TB) has had a devastating impact on British livestock and wildlife. Over the past decade alone, 278,000 cattle have been compulsorily slaughtered and over 230,000 badgers have been killed in efforts to control the disease.

On 30 August, the government announced the start of work on a comprehensive new strategy to continue to drive down bovine TB rates to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods and end the badger cull by the end of this parliament.

Working closely alongside farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists to rapidly strengthen and deploy a range of disease control measures, a key part of the strategy remains the ongoing development of a cattle vaccine, which is at the forefront of innovative solutions to help eradicate this disease.

Field trials of the candidate CattleBCG vaccine and companion test to “Detect Infected among Vaccinated Animals” (the so-called DIVA skin test) started in June 2021 and are on-going. The aim of these trials is to gather further information on the vaccine and the test to support marketing authorisation applications and international recognition. Our aim is to deliver an effective cattle TB vaccination strategy within the next few years to accelerate progress towards achieving Officially Bovine Tuberculosis Free status for England by 2038.

The work towards a new strategy marks a step-change in approach to tackling this devastating disease. It will consider how we boost cattle testing, reduce the spread of disease through cattle movements, and deploy badger vaccination on a wider, landscape scale. This will build on the independent review of the bovine TB strategy led by Professor Sir Charles Godfray in 2018.

Existing cull processes will be honoured to ensure clarity for farmers involved in these culls whilst new measures can be rolled out. However, the government has decided that it will not be proceeding with the proposals drawn up under the previous government relating to targeted badger culling. That follows careful consideration of the responses received to the public consultation launched earlier this year.

Work to underpin the next phase of policy with robust science has already begun and includes:

• The first badger population survey in over a decade, to start this winter, to estimate badger abundance and population recovery.

• The development of a new national wildlife TB surveillance programme to provide an up-to-date understanding of disease in badgers and other wildlife such as deer, unlocking a data-driven approach to inform how and where TB vaccines and other eradication measures are deployed.

• Establishment of a new Badger Vaccinator Field Force to increase badger vaccination delivery at pace and create progressively healthier badger populations that are less susceptible to catching and transmitting TB.

• A badger vaccination study to rapidly analyse the effect of badger vaccination on the incidence of TB in cattle, which in turn will encourage farmers to take part and provide greater confidence that doing so will have a positive effect on their cattle.

The strategy announcement ensures the government meets its manifesto commitment and represents a new direction in defeating this disease that will both protect the farming community and preserve wildlife.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs