A General Election has been called but the government’s badger killing machine grinds on. 

It's Badger Cull Action Week - Please help us get over 50,000 signatures for our petition and tell your UK parliamentary election candidates that the new government must end the badger cull. 

The 1st June marked the start of the ‘supplementary’ badger cull season. Licences were issued to allow killing badgers in 9 new areas in addition to the 17 existing areas. Supplementary badger cull licences cover areas that have already undergone 4 or more years of intensive culling. Since Oxfordshire cull zone (area 49) completed 4 years of culling in 2023 we fear that it is one of the new supplementary cull areas.  The shooters barely met their minimum target for Area 49 in 2023[1] . The threat of badgers  become locally extinct in Oxfordshire is a real concern.  In several heavily culled areas[2], they cannot find enough badgers to shoot; local extinction is already happening.

DEFRA and Natural England have overruled scientific advice not to issue supplementary cull licences this year

We now know – thanks to Freedom of Information -  that the 2024 licences were issued against the advice of the government’s own scientific advisor. Dr Peter Brotherton[3] said “Based on the evidence, I can find no justification for authorising further supplementary badger culls in 2024 for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease and recommend against doing so”.

The correspondence analysed by the Badger Trust shows that Natural England were told that stopping culling would not please the farming industry and caved into pressure from DEFRA to issue supplementary culling licences for 2024.

IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION

DEFRA say that they are still  ‘analysing’ their recent badger cull consultation. After the General Election, it may ask the new government to adopt the proposed “‘targeted cull”  policy and allow badger culling to continue indefinitely.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY’S SCIENTISTS NEED TO SPEAK OUT

Disease control and animal welfare policy must be based on sound scientific advice, Oxford University’s original badger cull research is the foundation of  DEFRA’s badger cull policy.  Their continued silence enables DEFRA to justify overruling it’s own scientific advice and continue to cull badgers. The focus on killing badgers instead of tackling the disease with effective cattle control measures is harming farmers and the countryside.

OXFORD SCIENTISTS NEED TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE MISUSE OF THEIR RESEARCH. THEY MUST USE THEIR SCIENTIFIC AUTHORITY TO HELP END THE CULL. 

WHAT CAN YOU DO ?

Help us get over 50,000 signatures. We want to PRESENT A MASSIVE PETITION to the  Oxford Scientists. We’ll leave them in no doubt about the strength of public opinion and we'll tell them that they must speak up.

Support BADGER CULL ACTION WEEK.
Please SIGN AND SHARE OUR PETITION as widely as you can.

HELP MAKE THE BADGER CULL AN ISSUE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION

If you are a UK voter then please contact your local candidates for MP in the coming General Election. The Badger Trust has published a manifesto for badgers on it’s dedicated General Election website page. We need as many people as possible to write to their local candidates and tell  them that the badger cull is an important issue for voters.

- there is also a template letter to help you. 

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS UPDATE. PLEASE SHARE WIDELY

Notes
[1] In Oxfordshire Area 49, 277 badgers where killed; the revised minimum target for 2023 was set at 260
[2] Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire
[3] Dr Peter Brotherton is Director of Science, Natural England