Update 24 September 2020:

Following the recent announcement of expansion of the badger cull to new areas of England including Derbyshire, The Wildlife Trusts are holding a special Wild LIVE discussion about the issue on Thursday 1 October at 7pm, hosted by The Wildlife Trusts’ Chief Executive Craig Bennett. Click here to sign up.

Following the Government’s announcement in 2018 to expand the badger cull to Low Risk Areas, Sheffield and Rotherham’s badgers are now at threat of being culled.

Although there are currently no licences for badger culling in Sheffield and Rotherham, a licence to cull could be granted for Low Risk Areas like ours at any time.

We’ve launched a Badger Appeal to raise funds protect our local badger population and deter culling from taking place – but we need your help to make this happen.

Please click here to donate to our appeal today.

Extending a flawed approach to managing Bovine TB must not go ahead. Biosecurity and cattle vaccination must be the focus of future public investment in Bovine TB eradication. The Government recently consulted on a proposal to extend the badger cull in to areas such as Sheffield and Rotherham.

This consultation is an extension to the Government’s Strategy for achieving Officially Bovine Tuberculosis Free (OTF) status for England, originally published in April 2014. In that strategy, South Yorkshire is identified as a Low Risk Area because there are relatively few cases of Bovine TB occurring in cattle here. As a result, the Strategy clearly stated that the focus in these areas should be on good farm biosecurity.

The Government consulted on changing this approach, to include badger culling as an option in all Low Risk Areas across England. This would effectively mean badger culling is permitted by licence from Natural England across the whole country, potentially leading to a near eradication of this native, protected species.