18/6/2007

Welsh farm leaders today rubbished a new report that says badger culling is not an effective way to curb the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle and some culling methods might actually aid the spread of the disease.

The final report of the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on Cattle TB concluded after ten years that TB control efforts should focus on measures other than badger culling, given its high costs and low benefits.

A randomised badger culling trial in 30 areas of England found that culling led to a 23 percent drop in the incidence of bovine TB inside the culled area.
However, it also found that culling disrupted the social organisation of badger sets, causing infections to become more widely dispersed: proactive culling led to a 25 percent increase in cattle TB on neighbouring un-culled land.

The ISG concluded that rigidly applied control measures targeted at cattle could, instead, reverse the rising incidence of disease, and halt its geographical spread.

But NFU Cymru today vowed to keep up the pressure for a cull of diseased badgers.

Dai Davies, NFU Cymru President said, "The ISG conclusion that badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to reducing TB in cattle is at odds with the findings of the final assessment of the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT) which found that repeated culling can be beneficial."

The RBCT findings were that a careful consideration is needed to determine in what settings systematic repeated culling might be reliably predicted to be beneficial, and in those cases whether the benefits of such culling warrant the costs involved.

Dai Davies said , "We have met our new Minister and made absolutely clear that there was a need to devise a culling strategy that would make a worthwhile difference to the disease situation.

"I simply do not accept that Government cannot devise a culling strategy that will reduce the reservoir of TB in badgers."

"Indeed, recent experience in Ireland, where a targeted badger culling strategy has reduced TB outbreaks in cattle by 42 per cent in the last five years, confirms that culling can and does work, if it is carried out thoroughly and carefully. If it has been successful in Ireland, why not here.

"Careful consideration of culling strategies is what the final assessment of the RBCT trials recommended, and careful consideration is precisely what we shall give the situation.

"Better testing and tighter controls on cattle movements, as suggested in the report, will be worthless unless something is done to stop the relentless cycle of re-infection of cattle in the TB hotspot areas by disease spreading from badgers.

"The alternative to a badger cull, as the report acknowledges, is the appalling prospect of disease continuing to spread through the countryside for an indefinite period stretching far into the future.

"That is not acceptable to me. Simply doing nothing is not an option and I am extremely disappointed that despite acknowledging the problem of the disease in badgers, the report offers no solution whatsoever. This report which has taken ten years to compile and cost 50 million pounds takes us absolutely no further forward whilst the problem escalates daily."