This cruel badger cull is pointless - and I can prove it, says Queen guitarist Brian May



By Brian May



At the recent Conservative Party Conference, I had a brief encounter with new Defra Minister Owen Paterson who seemed positively jubilant about the ‘imminent’ badger cull he is so enthusiastically backing.



I asked him: ‘Surely it would be better to vaccinate cattle instead of this cruel cull of badgers?’

He gave me a condescending smile and said: ‘Not a chance! Vaccination of cattle is years away.’

Battle: Brian May stands with a protestor as he joins a rally against the proposed badger cull

He pushed the palm of his hand into the middle distance, effectively cutting off any further discussion. For the Coalition, the policy of killing badgers to control bovine TB (bTB) in cows is the only ‘tool in the box’.

‘Nobody likes killing badgers but it’s unavoidable,’ they say, before reeling off numbers on the cost of bTB to the taxpayer, and how much misery it is causing farmers. Badger-culling, says Defra, is the most ‘affordable’ way to deal with the problem.



Yet even before it has begun, the cost of the cull has rocketed to double the original estimates, with farmers expected to help foot the bill. And to what end? Virtually every scientist in the field, and many farmers, too, are convinced that even if we could exterminate every badger in Britain, we could not eradicate bTB in cows.

Indeed, many believe the cull policy is likely to make the situation worse.

The ‘stop the cull’ petition on the Government’s own website collected 100,000 signatures in record time, entitling TeamBadger to secure the first-ever debate in Parliament on this policy.



Target: Many scientists and farmers are convinced that even if we could exterminate every badger in Britain, we could not eradicate bTB in cows

The motion is supported by MPs of every political colour and has strong support in the House, fuelled by revelations in the press about huge flaws in the scientific arguments.



So WHY is Mr Paterson, his Government and the National Farmers Union clinging to this discredited and highly unpopular policy? Why can we not vaccinate our cows as we do our children? There are two stock responses to this.

a) We can’t vaccinate because it’s impossible to distinguish a vaccinated cow from an infected cow. Therefore cows can’t be exported as buyers won’t risk bringing bTB into their country.

b) We can’t vaccinate because the EU won’t let us. Even last week Caroline Spelman, the ex-Defra Minister who brought in this cull, told me: ‘It would take years to change this – we’d have to go around every member state in Europe begging for a derogation.’

'Condescending': Brian May, left, had a brief and unproductive encounter with a dismissive Defra Minister Owen Paterson, right, when he raised the badger cull issue with him at the Conservative Party Conference



Well, last week, with Gavin Grant, chief executive of the RSPCA, and a delegation from TeamBadger, I visited Brussels to find out why the EU would not allow us to vaccinate our cows. We were joined, at our request, by a representative from the NFU.

What we discovered is a bomb that will blow the idea of culling badgers out of the water for ever. We were warmly welcomed at the European Parliament by MEPs of all parties – 90 per cent against culling wild animals, and 100 per cent in favour of helping us make cattle vaccination in Britain happen.

Next stop was the European Commission. Why, we asked Georg Haeusler, Chef de Cabinet for Agriculture, would the EU not let us vaccinate cows?

He looked at us in surprise and said: ‘But this is not true. You British are welcome to. You would find it was not possible to sell cows into the mainland of Europe because we would be risking bringing bTB into our countries.

But you do not export live cows to us anyway. It would be meat and milk and other ‘‘products’’ made from cattle that would be proscribed. But there would be no police descending on you if you began vaccinating tomorrow.’

Opposition: Protesters hold a rally on Parliament Square, outside the Houses of Parliament, against the cull of badgers

However, the fact remains that the directive from the European Commission of December 13, 1977, prohibits ‘anti-tuberculosis vaccination’ in any ‘plan for the accelerated eradication of tuberculosis’. This has been the justification for governments to ignore calls for vaccination of cows.

I asked Mr Haeusler the significance of this line. Initially, he confirmed the standard defence of the pro-cullers. ‘This was put in because we would not be able to tell which animals were vaccinated, and which were infected, and we would be risking spreading infection.’

But then I told him about the ‘DIVA’ test, designed to do just that, ready and tested in a laboratory in Surrey.

Mr Haeusler said: ‘If you can prove this test works, there would be no reason for us to ban the import of the products derived from your cattle.’

But what about the directive? He said: ‘It would be changed quickly.’

So much for Mr Paterson’s claim this would take years.

The news that the UK was about to slaughter 70 per cent of badgers to try to solve the bTB problem was met by Mr Haeusler with polite laughter.

‘This is ludicrous. If you believe badgers are the cause of the problem you’d have to kill them all. And that would be unacceptable in EU law, based on maintenance of biodiversity.’ He argued that the fact that Britain is the only country in Europe to have a bTB problem is no accident.

‘Over 30 years ago, Europe decided on a policy of destroying a whole herd when TB presented itself,’ said Haeusler. Britain decided to adopt a cheaper option.

Instead of eliminating the whole herd, we opted to take out individual animals. But infected cows do not always show up.

And when TB reoccurs, it is all too easy for farmers to blame badgers. Badger culls do nothing more than divert attention from the real failure of the NFU, Defra and the Coalition to tackle bTB. It is time to call off the cull and get on with combating TB properly.

A Defra spokesman said: 'We’ve spent £43.7 million badger and cattle vaccines since 1997 and are spending £15.5 million over next four years. Veterinary advice is that vaccination will not be as effective as culling in quickly lowering the weight of infection in the badger population.



'While laboratory tests have shown vaccination could have an impact if used in conjunction with other measures there is limited data on how effective it would be in the field.'

