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Badgers and bTB

Help stop the badger cull coming to Sheffield and Rotherham!

© Badger by Jon Hawkins, Surrey Hills Photography

UPDATE – 10th March 2021:

We’re joining The Wildlife Trusts’ call for people to respond to the Government’s badger cull consultation and ask for an immediate stop to all cull licenses. Click the following link to respond to the consultation by Wednesday 24th March 2021: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/stand-up-for-badgers



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.

  • The Issue
  • Our Position
  • Updates
  • What We Have Done
  • What You Can Do
  • Evidence

The Issue

The UK has 25% of the global population of the Eurasian badger Meles meles.

We therefore have an international responsibility to conserve the species, and that includes protecting the range of genetic variation within the UK population.

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Our Position

We agree with the strong scientific evidence that culling badgers will make no meaningful contribution to the management of bovine TB and may even be counterproductive to the reduction of bovine TB.

We are very conscious of the hardship that bovine TB causes the farming community, with an increasing number of cattle contracting this awful disease each year. We understand the need for action and have concluded, from our knowledge of previous scientific cull trials, that in the short-term a nationally-co-ordinated sustained programme of badger vaccination, improved biosecurity measures and improved testing and control of cattle movement would be the best means of tackling the disease.

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Badgers and bTB Updates

Government plan to phase out badger cull must mean end to licences now

We are joining The Wildlife Trusts nationally in a call for people to respond to the Government’s badger cull consultation and request that cull licenses stop being issued immediately.

Wild LIVE: The Badger Cull – Book Today

Government U-turn on badger cull extremely devastating say Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust

Stop the badger cull coming to Derbyshire

We need your help to persuade the Government not to approve a badger cull in Derbyshire this September.

What we have done and will do

Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust will continue to monitor the developments of Government’s Strategy for 'Achieving bovine TB free England'.

This report identifies Sheffield and Rotherham as a low risk area because currently there are very few cases of bovine TB found in cattle in Yorkshire.

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What you can do to help

Write to your MP

Contact your MP about this and ask what they will do to help.

See Full Details

Donate to our appeal

Support our appeal for funds to vaccinate badgers in Sheffield

Donate Now

Evidence and References

View evidence and references related to our position on badger culling and bovine TB.

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Links & Downloads

  • Response proposal to extend Badger cull pdf 548 KB
  • Bovine Strategy Map Overview pdf 270 KB
  • https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.13512
  • https://elifesciences.org/articles/45833

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