Badgers - culling and controversy

The striped, furry face of the European badger (Meles meles) is an iconic and much loved image. At around 1m long and weighing up to 12kg, this mustelid is the UKs largest remaining land predator. They hunt at night, foraging for a variety of foods including snails, slugs, blackberries and the occasional hedgehog, but earthworms constitute around 60% of their diet. 

A young badger foraging in a woodland at dusk, Hampshire.

Typically, badgers have that iconic black and white face with a greyish body and black legs and chest, however, there are also albino, leucistic, erythristic and melanistic individuals. Older individuals may have yellow staining from their subcaudal scent gland. Badgers have several scent glands and spread odours as warning signals and to advertise their mating status. They practise squat marking and allo-marking (marking other individuals). Within one social group of 4-8 adults, badgers have more similar scents compared to badgers from other groups. Territory boundaries are also marked using faecal scents, by defecating in shallow latrines. Within their territory a badger clan will have a main sett, which often exceeds 50m long, with multiple chambers and entrances, as well as several smaller, less frequently used outlying setts. Each clans' primary sett is used and expanded by consecutive generations; some are at least 100 years old. 

A badger at the entrance to its sett.

One relatively small entrance to a large badger sett with multiple entrances.

Badgers mate at any time of year, but due to delayed implantation each female only has 1 litter each year, with cubs born in January or February. The female gives birth to around 2-3 cubs in a chamber lined with straw, hay, grass and ferns as bedding. The cubs remain underground for around 2 months and become mature at one year old. Cub mortality may be increased by the more extreme weather predicted due to climate change; late winter flooding reduces the area available for foraging and can flood setts. In the event of a flood mother badgers carry each cub out of the sett individually, and any not removed in time will drown. At the other end of the scale, drought in late spring can have detrimental effects on badger populations as dry ground reduces the availability of earthworms. Females that have just finished lactating are often in poor condition - this is when breeding females are at their lowest body mass. However, badgers are opportunistic animals and will use other methods to find food, such as digging up bee and wasp nests for larvae, breaking open deadwood for invertebrates and even digging into rabbit burrows to eat rabbit kits. Under these circumstances badgers are also more likely to be seen foraging during the day. In autumn it is important for badgers to have an abundant supply of food, as it's at this time of year they build up a thick layer of subcutaneous fat to allow them to get through torpor in winter. 

A badger foraging in scrub at dusk. 

Though much loved by the public, badgers are at the heart of a well-known human-wildlife conflict. Both badgers and cattle can contract and transmit bovine tuberculosis, a disease which takes a huge toll on cattle farmers, both financially and emotionally. In 2010/11 bovine TB was estimated to cost the UK economy £91 million and led to 25,000 cattle being killed after contracting it. The government's current management plan to reduce the spread of bTB includes badger culling, which is supported by the NFU. This aims to reduce instances of bTB in cattle by killing badgers, to lower the risk of badger-to-cattle transmission. However, the cull is widely opposed - public opinion polls showed that the public were against it, the British Veterinary Association takes issue due to animal welfare concerns, many leading scientists have voiced their opposition and most wildlife charities want to stop the cull. There is mounting evidence that badger culling is not effective in reducing bTB cases in cattle. This is partly due to 'the perturbation effect' - culling badgers reduces their population density and disrupts their social structures, which causes them to move around more frequently and over larger distances. More roaming of badgers increases the risk of badger-badger transmission and badger-cattle transmission. 

A more popular and viable solution to bTB is badger vaccination. This has been trialled in government funded schemes and in projects funded by the Badger Trust. Vaccinating badgers has been shown to reduce instances of the disease in badgers, and doesn't disrupt social structures. There are fewer animal welfare concerns than when badgers are killed, as individuals are trapped, vaccinated and released. Another advantage is the lower cost - the badger cull costs at least £1000 per badger killed, whereas vaccination costs approximately £200 per badger. As a large proportion of cattle bTB cases are from other cattle, improving biosecurity on farms is also important. This can include keeping separate herds away from each other and effectively testing and isolating new cattle. A cattle vaccination programme is planned for 2025, which will help eradicate bovine TB. 

Outside of the culling scheme, Meles meles is a protected species - the Protection of Badger Act 1992 outlaws the killing, persecution and trapping of badgers, as well as the damage, destruction and obstructing of setts. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 also protects badgers.