Email to members of Gloucestershire Budget and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee at Gloucestershire County Council

I have sent an email to all members of Gloucestershire County Council's Budget and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee ahead of their meeting next week where they will be debating a petition about the pilot badger culls. 

The issue is of huge concern to the public but also many people perhaps don't know or understand quite why there is such strength of feeling about the trial culls. I hope to have provided a brief overview of the concerns being expressed by scientists, the police and the public. 

Some of the information given is credited in the email but some of it I have taken from the Lancashire Badger Group web site which has a handy '8 things you should know about the badger cull' page - http://www.lancashirebadgergroup.org.uk/2012/09/18/8-things-you-should-know-about-the-badger-cull/

If you care about the fate of badgers - and even cows and farmers who will not be helped by this cull please sign the petition http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38257 which if 100,000 signatures are reached will spark the need for Parliament to debate the issue.

Dear colleagues,

You will be considering a petition regarding the pilot badger cull trial in Gloucestershire at your Budget and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting next week, Weds 26^th September.

I hope you can spare a few minutes to consider some of the key issues around this controversial subject and support my request that due to the following the petition should be referred to full council so all members have the proper chance to debate it:

·         the high levels of public interest in the pilot badger culls,

·         criticism of the policy from the scientists on whose work it has been justified,

·         the possibility that bTB could be spread from outside the cull zone affecting other farmers (through the perturbation effect),

·         concerns about public safety expressed by the police and

·         Increased threat of wildlife crime committed against badgers outside the culling zone.

There is huge public interest in the proposed trial badger culls as has been shown by the speed at which Dr Brian May’s online petition has gained support – having gained over 60,000 signatures in a matter of days - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38257

Supermarkets M&S, Waitrose and the Co Op have confirmed they will not be selling milk from suppliers within the culling zone. People are using their consumer power to let farmers know what they think. These are trial culls and could be rolled out elsewhere but in the trial areas the cull must continue for years once started. If the British public do not want to buy milk or beef from areas where badgers are culled and supermarkets continue to respond to their customers concerns, it could have a catastrophic impact on the demand for milk and beef produced by farmers in Gloucestershire. I have changed my shopping habits as a direct result and I know many other people have as well. This will have a serious economic impact on our rural economy here which I believe the council has a duty to have an interest in.

The pilot badger culls are being described by the Government as part of their science-led approach to tackling bovine TB. However, the architect of the Randomised Badger Cull Trial (Lord Krebs) – the scientific experiment on which the Govt bases its claims has described the proposed pilot badger culls as a ‘crazy scheme’. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19623931 ).

The RBCT cost £50m of public money, took 10 years and saw 11,000 badgers being killed. The conclusions of that enormous piece of scientific research was that killing badgers could make no meaningful contribution to reducing incidents of bovine TB in cattle and instead recommended vaccination and improved bio security as the way to tackle the disease.

This new ‘pilot’ cull will not test or investigate the reduction in bTB using the method of free shooting of badgers at night (a method which was never used in the RBCT where badgers were cage trapped and shot). It is a test to find out whether they can kill 70% of the badgers in the cull area, and kill them humanely. Not whether this method will reduce bTB. If the government decide that they can achieve their kill rate without wounding too many this will be rolled out across the South West, killing up to 130,000 badgers.

The RBCT experiment found that at best, using cage trapping and shooting over 10 years, culling could reduce the increase in the incidence (not the overall amount of bTB) by 16%.  This is what’s called a relative reduction, not an absolute reduction. Something else therefore, other than badgers is causing the background rise in bTB.  The scientists involved in the RBCT and the ISG do not believe that the new method of culling can achieve this. In fact they believe it could make the situation worse (but no-one will be measuring that).

The Independent Scientific Group’s final report in 2007 based on the Randomised Badger Culling Trial concluded that culling was not an effective option, even if conducted rigorously and systematically. The ISG  analysed various strategies that could be pursued at lower cost – including licensing farmers to conduct a cull, rather than having it co-ordinated by government.

It concluded: “We consider it likely that licensing farmers (or their appointees) to cull badgers would not only fail to achieve a beneficial effect, but would entail a substantial risk of increasing the incidence of cattle TB and spreading the disease.”

In order for the pilot culls to try and reduce bTB at least 70% of badgers in an area should be killed (to avoid the perturbation effect – see picture below) but establishing accurately how many badgers there are in such a large area as is proposed will be very difficult if not impossible to achieve. Shooting free running badgers at night is not an easy task as they are low slung, thick skinned animals and as mentioned before this method of killing badgers not been subject to scientific testing.

Nationally suggestions are that there are 300,000 badgers in England. This means that if the cull is rolled out following the pilot, we could stand to lose 1/3rd of the nation’s badgers.  The majority of which will be healthy. Plus, there is no way of knowing for sure how many badgers are killed or wounded.  

According to the Bern convention it would be illegal to cause local extinction. Without an accurate count of badgers, there is a risk this could happen. Humane Society International has a complaint with Bern about the badger cull. I believe the County Council has a duty in respect to land which it owns to act to ensure that it does not contribute to a policy where badgers are made locally extinct in the part of Gloucestershire where the cull is to take place - contrary to the Bern convention. An interesting video on youtube discusses this issue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_55z1AgLM_c&feature=youtu.be

If the 70% target is not reached in the Gloucestershire cull zone then it is highly likely perturbation would occur impacting negatively on farms just outside the cull zone. Again I believe the County must be a responsible land owner and not allow anything to happen on its land which would harm or prejudice farmers elsewhere.

There IS a vaccine for cattle and badgers. Badgers are being vaccinated now by injection and an oral vaccine should be ready in two years. This vaccine has shown a 74% reduction in badgers testing positive for bovine tb and does not cause badgers to leave their territory and spread the disease further.  There is a cattle vaccine which is being used in Ethiopia and has shown positive results (much better than the result that can be achieved with a cull). We currently can’t use it because of EU regulations. Why is our government not putting pressure on the EU to allow it’s use?

Culling badgers will not result in healthy badgers. The RBCT found that culling badgers increases the level of the disease in the remaining population. You may have less badgers, but a higher proportion of them will be carrying the disease than before. This means that all the years of culling and gassing over the last 50 years have been making the situation worse.

Badgers rarely die of bovine tb. Very few badgers, even in hotspot areas of the South West are even infected with bovine tb. Of those, only a very small percentage will become ill and therefore infectious. The vast majority of infected badgers are more likely to die of other causes. If this were not the case, badger groups across the country would be dealing with tb on a daily basis. They aren’t.

You may have heard ‘No country in the world has beaten bovine tb without addressing the disease in wildlife’. This refers mainly to possums in New Zealand. Possums do not live in settled territories like badgers; they roam over much greater distances and interact with many other possums and species.  Possums are also a pest species in New Zealand, not a native species. They were killed by dropping poisoned bait from the air. Poison is indiscriminate and has killed many of New Zealand native and protected wildlife. You cannot compare apples with oranges, or possums with badgers due to their very different ecology and behaviour.

In terms of public safety police have expressed concerns about the pilot culls (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/19/badger-cull-public-safety-risk).

Detective chief superintendent Adrian Tudway, national co-ordinator for domestic extremism at the Association of Chief Police Officers, told Defra officials: "Farmers and landowners culling badgers with firearms (of any description) has potential to place armed farm workers in the near vicinity of protesters and activists, typically during the night-time; we regard this as a scenario with clear potential for harm to public safety … we believe there is a likelihood [of] incidents of lawful protest and lobbying as well as some potential for unlawful direct action, disorder and criminality." He also referred to reduced police resources owing to "the impact of the recent funding cuts".

There is also a risk that the pilot culls give a signal that in is open season to kill or abuse badgers. Peter Charleston, staff officer at Acpo to Chief Constable Richard Crompton, who has responsibility for wildlife crime, told his boss in an email the cull would risk widespread illegal killing of badgers under the cover of culling: "Concerns relate to the possibility of open season being declared on badgers because of a perception that Defra is not really bothered about their protected status."

As a public authority this council has a duty to protect its residents and the economic wellbeing of our county. I firmly believe that given the significant concern about this policy – as shown by scientists who undertook the RBCT, the police who are concerned about public safety, and the public that a strong signal from this committee is needed to show that this council takes this issue seriously. Referring the petition to council will enable all members to understand the legal issues for the council in relation to land it owns or controls and for members to speak on behalf of their communities and for us all to take responsibility for the actions that take place on land we own or control.

Kind regards.

Klara.