Badgers not to blame for bovine TB, claims cull critic

An outspoken critic of the badger cull says farmers should stop blaming badgers for bovine TB outbreaks in cattle.

Dominic Dyer, chief executive of the Badger Trust, said there had been a huge demonisation of badgers, which he called the “badger blame game”.

However, Mr Dyer said he could find no evidence of peer-reviewed research that proved TB is passed from badgers to cattle.

See also: ‘TB supremo’ needed to eradicate bovine TB

“I don’t think badgers are in any way a key problem here. I think they can pass TB, but in very exceptional circumstances. They can’t do it easily.”

The RBCT trial showed that if badgers were not involved at all nothing would have changed in TB cattle. But it did change Prof Rosie Woodroffe, Zoological Society

“They have become a huge distraction. We are starting in the wrong place.”

However, scientists and wildlife experts disputed Mr Dyer’s comments, which were made at a press briefing hosted by anti-cull campaigner Brian May in Westminster on Tuesday (12 July).

Prof John Bourne, a former chairman of the Independent Scientific Group set up to supervise the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) between 1997 and 2008, said: “This is primarily a disease of cattle that is transmitted from cattle to cattle and badgers are involved.

“Transmission from badgers to cattle occurs at a very low level. It is estimated in modeling at 6%. I believe it is less than that.”

Prof Rosie Woodroffe, of the Zoological Society of London, said: “The RBCT trial showed that if badgers were not involved at all [in the transmission of TB to cattle], nothing would have changed in TB cattle. But it did change.

“I completely agree with John [Bourne] that cattle-to-cattle transmission is a major part of it. But the badger contribution isn’t zero.”