Nearly 1,500 badgers were killed in 2015 as part of the Government’s badger cull, Defra has announced, which include 756 animals killed in Dorset, 432 in Gloucestershire and 279 in Somerset as part of efforts to eradicate bovine Tuberculosis (bTB). According to Liz Truss, the Environment Secretary: “Our strategy to eradicate bTB is working”.

However, none of the culled badgers have been autopsied for bTB in the three years of badger culling (if the badgers are healthy, there is no point in culling them, since they cannot be transmitting bTB they do not carry) and bTB rates in cattle outside of the cull zones have been dropping consistently for five years due to improved testing, bio-security and movement controls.

According to the Badger Trust Chairman: “Unless the Government can prove the culling of badgers is working in terms of lowering bTB in cattle, this cruel, ineffective and hugely costly policy must be stopped immediately”.