Shift to a vaccination strategy against bovine TB fulfills an election promise
LONDON, U.K.––With all eyes even in the United Kingdom seemingly fixed on the U.S. presidential race between vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, the British Labour Party government elected on July 4, 2024 has already paid at least one major dividend for animals by announcing a phased end to more than half a century of badger culls undertaken to combat bovine tuberculosis.
The Labour government headed by longtime animal advocate Keir Starmer had pledged during the election campaign to abolish badger culling.
(See U.K. election: pro-animal & pro-Dangerous Dogs Act Labour slate wins big.)
New studies support vaccination over culling
Several new scientific studies published subsequent to the election underscored that even though badgers can carry and transmit bovine tuberculosis from herd to herd, badgers are not the major vector for herd-to-herd tuberculosis transmission, and culling badgers, while traditional, is not an effective control strategy.
The United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs [DEFRA] on August 30, 2024 quietly announced that the national bovine tuberculosis control strategy is to transition completely from culling to vaccination within five years.
Culling to continue “until new plans are finalized”
Badger culling “will continue until new plans are finalized, DEFRA said in a press release,” summarized Erik Stokstad for Science.
“This winter,” Stokstad wrote, “DEFRA will begin the first survey of badger populations since 2013. It will also start disease surveillance in badgers, as well as in deer and additional species, to guide vaccination plans.
The bacterial disease bovine tuberculosis, Stokstad explained, “poses a serious threat to dairy and beef farmers, because cattle infected with TB give less milk, provide lower quality meat, and must be slaughtered to prevent spread of the disease.”
National Farmers Union
Under pressure from the National Farmers Union, a major campaign donor to the Conservative Party, a succession of British governments have culled badgers to control bovine tuberculosis, against the advice of almost every scientist who has studied the alleged role of badgers as a reservoir for bovine TB.
Among the most outspoken opponents of the culling strategy has been biologist Lord John Krebs, who led nine years of experimental culling, 1997-2006.
Charged Naturewatch campaigns manager Carolyn Barker, when the previous Conservative government renewed badger culling, at an escalated pace, “In the 1970s bovine TB was almost eliminated through regular testing of cattle, slaughtering infected animals, and placing their herds under quarantine until further testing results were clear. Eleven years of localized badger culling failed to reduce bovine TB any further.
Vaccination studies halted by Conservatives
“In the mid-1980s,” Barker recalled, “the annual testing of cattle ended, and during the bovine spongiform encephalopathy and foot-and-mouth crises [1996-2001] no testing was done. Many farms lost entire herds and afterward regulations were relaxed as farms restocked. Cattle were bought and sold and moved all over the country.
“Incredibly,” Barker continued, “just two months after coming into office in 2010, [former environment secretary] Caroline Spelman cancelled five out of the six badger vaccination trials started by the [preceding] Labour government, making clear that DEFRA had already made up its mind to cull.”
London Zoo study
Recent studies critical of badger-culling include an August 6, 2024 People & Nature report “on the results of a four-year pilot badger vaccination program co-managed between farmers, scientists, and conservationists,” announced Hayley Dunning, science communication lead for Imperial College London.
“The findings,” Dunning wrote, “show the percentage of badgers testing positive for bovine tuberculosis in the study area dropped from 16% to 0%.
“The first-of-its-kind project,” Dunning said, “was initiated by Cornish farmers and implemented by the Zoological Society of London and Cornwall Wildlife Trust, with partners including Imperial College London researchers.”
“The spread is from cow to cow”
Former Queen guitarist Sir Brian May, 77, who is also a Ph.D.-holding astrophysicist, funded and led a study released to the public on August 19 2024 through a BBC documentary that showed, May explained, that “The spread of bovine tuberculosis is from cow to cow and it’s because of inefficient hygiene situations.
“Biosecurity in the old days meant keeping the badgers out but now means keeping the slurry away from the cows so they can’t infect each other,” May said.
“At the root of it all,” May emphasized, “there are certain principles which need to be followed, which are really keeping the pathogen from progressing throughout a herd, cutting off its line of transmission.”
Culling sends infected badgers running
Just one day later, reported Amarion Scarlett-Reid for The Guardian, “Researchers at the University of Oxford found that although badger culling reduced incidences of tuberculosis in the areas where it took place, in neighboring areas the risk of the disease in cattle increased by almost a third,” as badgers fled from culling sites to new habitat.
“In the two-part study,” Scarlett-Reid summarized, “researchers re-analysed data from the randomized badger culling trial,” led by Lord John Krebs, “that took place between 1998 and 2005.
“The initial study produced data showing beneficial results to cattle in the areas where culling took place.
“However, a secondary study found a 29% increased risk of bTB infections in cattle in surrounding areas.”
Oral vaccination baits
These findings followed by two years a March 2022 Frontiers of Veterinary Science report spotlighting the use of oral vaccination baits to help keep France free of bovine tuberculosis.
The highly politicized fight in the United Kingdom over badger vaccination versus culling is likely to continue.
“The Zoological Society of London, which has long studied badger vaccination as an alternative to culls, in a statement declared itself ‘delighted’ by the promise to end badger culling by 2029,” reported Stokstad for Science.
“Meanwhile, the National Farmers’ Union urged the government not to give up the practice,” questioning “the cost and feasibility of badger and cattle vaccination, calling for further research.”
Recounted Stokstad, “Bovine TB is a complex disease and managing it in the U.K. has been expensive and controversial for decades.
“The bacteria Mycobacterium bovis can be spread by wild badgers to cattle, but more frequently are transmitted between cattle. To control it, farmers in the U.K. have slaughtered more than 278,000 infected cows over the past decade,” while more than 230,000 badgers have been culled, reducing the U.K. badger population by half, according to the Badger Trust.
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Thanks.
“half a century of badger culls”. Really. Fifty years of badger culling. Has it been that long. And we still have more badgers left to cull and the end to bovine TB seems not in sight.