Introduction: Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is endemic in parts of England. Since 2013 the UK government has facilitated industry-led culling of badgers (Meles meles), initially to test the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of shooting to reduce populations by 70% over four years in pilot zones. There is a belief in the farming industry that badgers are an important bTB vector, but this is disputed in the scientific community and the cull is not designed to test effects on bTB.
Despite controversy, the cull has expanded geographically and continued beyond four years in the original zones. This paper examines the role of evidence in the design, implementation and assessment of the policy.
Methodology: We review the literature on the cull since 2013. Key texts include reports by IEP1 and APHA2. We examine parliamentary briefings3 and government consultation responses4, epidemiological research5, media coverage, and polemic interventions by stakeholders.
Main findings: We find that in media and civil society discourse ‘success’ and ‘effectiveness’ tend to refer to effects on bTB incidence, while government and industry sources apply these terms more narrowly to badgers killed, but benefit from the ambiguity. The limited epidemiological literature offers no conclusive evidence that the cull has reduced bTB.
We note a shift in what government and industry stakeholders understand to be the purpose of the cull. Originally a time-limited pilot with pre-defined success criteria, these have been downplayed in later assessments. No certainty exists on how long the cull is to continue and its ongoing evidential basis is unclear.
Principal conclusions and implications for field: A reversal has occurred in the relationship between evidence and policy, with the cull presented as successful on the basis of continued expansion, and expansion driven by claims of success, without convincing reference to bTB. Political opposition was overcome through claims of a measured, scientific approach, making its subsequent transformation into an open-ended policy of permitting badgers to be killed easier to accomplish than straightforward removal of their protected status.
The cull’s progress offers insights into policy formulation, and a case study in the continuing vulnerability of legally protected animals if they are perceived as a threat by industries with influence over policy.