Badgers keep their distance from cattle, and bovine TB is probably spread between the two species in the environment, a new study has shown.

For the first time, scientists have proved that badgers rarely come into contact with cows, which means disease must be spread through bodily fluids on the ground or in feeding troughs.

Scientists at Imperial College and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) attached GPS collars to hundreds of badgers and cows and monitored how close they came to each other at 20 farms in Devon and Cornwall.

Over a course of 18 months the badgers did not come within 16 feet (five metres) of each other. It is thought the animals would need to be within five feet for disease to be spread.

The researchers concluded that TB was being passed between the two populations through pasture contamination, which also meant that infected cows could be passing it between themselves, and farms could remain disease hotspots even when animals have been culled.