The controversial culling of badgers in England is set to resume early next week, sources have told the Guardian. But revised rules for the night-time shoots, aimed at curbing the rise of tuberculosis in cattle, have been criticised as being weaker and independent scientific analysis of the cull has been removed.



The culls are starting later than in 2013, despite the increasing difficulty of killing badgers as the weather cools and they spend more time underground. Sources say the delay is the result of police resources being taken up at the Nato conference in Wales. The cull in 2013 required a policing effort costing millions of pounds and pulling in officers from many different forces.

The 2013 badger culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset were widely seen as failures. Marksmen were unable to kill the minimum number of animals required and an independent expert panel (IEP) appointed by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs concluded the culls were neither effective nor humane. There were also widely varying estimates of the badger populations, which led former environment secretary to claim that the badgers “had moved the goalposts”.

The RSPCA’s David Bowles said: “We are saddened but unsurprised at the reinstatement of the badger culls. This action is flying in the face of public and scientific opinion.”

The failures ended a plan by ministers roll-out culling across the nation, but the Gloucestershire and Somerset pilots are continuing. However, Prof Rosie Woodroffe, a leading badger expert at the Zoological Society of London, said low minimum kill targets for 2014 meant the cull could actually make TB worse as fleeing badgers spread the disease more widely.

“It is well established that killing too few badgers leads to increases in cattle TB rather than reductions,” she said. The landmark culling trial Woodroffe worked on from 1998-2006 showed culls could curb TB when over 70% of badgers were killed within 12 days. But, Woodroffe said, the new Somerset targets could mean the 70% level would not be reached even after two years and ignoring the number of new badgers being born or migrating into empty setts.

The decision not to have the IEP assess the 2014 cull was sharply criticised by an IEP member, Prof Tim Coulson, at the University of Oxford. “I wonder if the government no longer wants to know the answer to whether their ongoing pilot culls will deliver the required outcome,” he said. “I wonder if conducting the pilot culls is the easiest way for the government to look as if it is tackling the awful issue of bovine TB, even though a large body of animal ecology has concluded it is unlikely to be the solution in England?”

The requirement to kill a minimum number of badgers also appears to have been weakened. In 2013, letters of culling authorisation from licensing body Natural England (NE) stated that a minimum number had to “to be taken and killed”, but in 2014 the same clause states a number “you should aim to kill”.

An NE spokesman said: “The change in wording reflects the advice from the IEP about the difficulty in obtaining accurate population estimates, which is why the programme is flexible and the numbers can be adjusted depending on the evidence on the ground.”

Dominic Dyer, of the Badger Trust and Care for the Wild, said: “There appears to be only one reason NE changed the wording and that is effectively to ensure there is no practical minimum number of badgers the National Farmers Union must kill to satisfy the licence. NE and Defra appear to be hellbent on ensuring NFU cannot fail to be effective this year. It is a national disgrace.” Other changes appear intended to increase the number of kills, such as allowing shooting from greater distances.

Cull opponents argue that vaccination of badgers, and cracking down on the movement of cattle at risk of TB, would be more effective in tackling the disease. Such measures appear to be bringing down TB in Wales, where no cull is taking place. A government-backed vaccination programme was launched this summer, but, unlike the cull, it will not target to TB hot-spot areas. Instead it aims to limit the geographical spread of TB eastwards into less affected counties.