The Government announced last month that it was issuing seven new licences for badger culling across England, including in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, in an attempt to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB).

That is despite more than 40,000 people responding to a Government consultation at the start of this year urging it to stop issuing licences and prioritise vaccination instead.

The licences were also issued regardless of the fact that BBOWT has been running a highly successful badger vaccination programme in the area since 2014 and has inoculated hundreds of badgers - many of which could now be pointlessly killed. Over the past seven years, BBOWT has vaccinated badgers over a 20km² area covering its own nature reserves, council land, farms and private estates.

The Government has already said that it will stop allowing culling from 2025 and instead push for vaccination of badgers and cattle in a drive to eradicate bTB in England by 2038. Now BBOWT and the 45 other local conservation charities that make up The Wildlife Trusts are calling on the Government to simply achieve its own ambition sooner.

Julia Lofthouse, BBOWT Mammal Project Manager, said:

"The current situation is absurd: over the past seven years, BBOWT has successfully vaccinated hundreds of badgers, protecting them from bTB and preventing them from passing the disease onto cattle. What's more, our results have proven this is a much more humane way to tackle bTB than culling - and is also at least 60 times cheaper per badger.

"We aren't even asking the Government to change its policy - we are saying its ambition to move from culling to vaccination is completely right. In fact, we think it's such a good idea we are asking them to start doing it right now, instead of carrying on with a hugely unpopular, needlessly expensive and inhumane slaughter."

The seven new culling licences come into effect this year alongside 33 existing cull areas across England. In total, the 40 licences allow for up to 83,210 badgers to be shot by 2025, and this year’s cull is set to be the largest yet.

By the end of the cull, 300,000 badgers out of an estimated population of 485,000 may have been killed.

Bovine TB is an extremely harmful disease, and The Wildlife Trusts are sympathetic to the great hardship that it causes the farming community. However, badgers are not the main culprit: the main source of bTB is cattle-to-cattle transmission, and scientific evidence has shown the culling of badgers is ineffective in fighting bTB in cattle.

Instead of badger culling, The Wildlife Trusts want the Government to:

• Develop and deliver a badger vaccination strategy

• Roll out a cattle vaccine

• Improve testing of cattle for bTB and limit the movement of cattle across the country

• Ensure higher standards of biosecurity on farms to prevent the spread of bTB

BBOWT is calling on MPs to carry the message to the Environment Secretary George Eustice MP that the public wants the Government to fast-track its transition from culling to vaccinating.

Estelle Bailey, Chief Executive of BBOWT, said:

“In this country we are currently facing an environmental emergency, with dozens of species in alarming decline and our climate in crisis. With that in mind, it is impossible for the Government to justify continuing to slaughter a native wildlife species for four years – especially one that is protected in law and an icon of the British countryside.

“The Government knows this, which is why it has pledged to stop issuing badger cull licences. All we are asking our leaders to do is have the courage of their convictions and stop the killing right now. We need more nature everywhere and that goes for badgers too.”

BBOWT is asking supporters to stand up for badgers by writing to their MPs to ask them to speak up on this issue in Parliament. Follow this link for an email template and  add in your own comments. The more you personalise it, the more likely your MP is to take notice: https://action.wildlifetrusts.org/page/90785/action/1