The Scottish Wildlife Trust, alongside 47 other UK Wildlife Trusts, is calling on the UK Government to stop the killing of badgers and to prioritise a badger vaccine in its efforts to combat bovine TB (bTB).

Incidences of bovine TB in Scotland are sufficiently low to make Scotland officially “bTB free”, but the Trust believes we should do all we can to avoid a precedent being set south of the border which may have consequences for Scottish badgers, should there be any significant increase in the disease here.      

The Wildlife Trusts movement has in recent years led the way on this issue, with 11 Trusts now working on badger vaccination programmes to prove that vaccination is the best way forward to tackle bTB.

Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust will continue the vaccination programme it began last year while others – including Shropshire, Cheshire, South & West Wales, Warwickshire and Somerset – are working on their own vaccination projects.

Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust’s Badger Vaccination Deployment Programme, which took place over the summer in 2011, was the first of its kind in the UK undertaken by a voluntary organisation.

Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust ran the programme at seven of its nature reserves, including a dairy farm, covering a total of 170 hectares. Results of the first UK badger vaccination trial were published in October, showing it to be an affordable and viable alternative to culling.

As a movement, The Wildlife Trusts is keen for the farming community, conservation organisations and the UK Government to continue to work together to confront this disease through the following measures:

• Biosecurity: All possible measures should be pursued to prevent disease transmission on-farm
• Badger vaccination: Support landowners to use the injectable Badger BCG vaccine. The Wildlife Trusts also urge Defra to continue development of an oral badger vaccine
• Cattle vaccine: Complete development of a cattle vaccine and secure change to EU regulation to permit its commercial deployment

Stephanie Hilborne OBE, Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said:

“The Wildlife Trusts are very conscious of the hardship that bovine TB (bTB) causes in the farming community and the need to find the right mechanisms to control the disease. However, we believe that a badger cull is not the answer.

“Our involvement with this issue over a long period of time has led us to the conclusion that a sustained programme of vaccination, alongside improved biosecurity measures, would be the best means of tackling bTB.

“We will continue to press the Government to reject the badger cull and to push forward with badger vaccination. We will also continue to push the EU to change the rules to allow the cattle vaccine to be deployed once development is complete.

“The Wildlife Trusts will continue to support cattle testing measures and promote good biosecurity and husbandry in our work with farmers.”