Badger Trust Open Letter to Chief Veterinary Officer

 See more here: https://www.badgertrust.org.uk/post/badger-lives-hang-in-the-balance-as-badger-trust-s-open-letter-to-cvo-seeks-urgent-clarity

Badger lives ‘hang in the balance’ as Badger Trust’s open letter to CVO seeks urgent clarity

Is an APHA epidemiological report incorrect and not to be relied upon, or is the DEFRA Secretary of State’s letter ‘misleading’?

 Dr Christine Middlemiss BVMS MRCVS

Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO)

11 August 2023

Dear Chief Veterinary Officer,

On behalf of Badger Trust, I am writing an open letter to you in your capacity as the UK’s CVO.

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs recently responded to concerns raised about the licensed killing of badgers in Hampshire and the reasons for continuing the badger cull there, despite there being scant evidence of badgers In Hampshire either being infected with bTB or passing bTB to cattle.

The Secretary’s response includes that the 2021 Hampshire epidemiological report attributes wildlife as the most likely cause of many of the bovine TB breakdowns in the northwest of the county as justification for the continuing badger cull. By your own data, this simply is not true, and no evidence has been presented that this is the case. For example, APHA’s 2021 Year-End Descriptive Epidemiological Report for Hampshire clearly shows no TB incidents for which badgers or other wildlife were identified as a “definite” or “most likely” source of infection anywhere in the county. In addition, any tests carried out on badgers in the run-up to the badger cull in Hampshire showed little evidence of bTB presence in badgers.

Please clarify whether the APHA report is incorrect and cannot be relied upon or if the Secretary of State’s response is misleading. Your clarification is, of course, of utmost urgency in the run-up to the next round of badger culling scheduled from late August 2023 in Hampshire and many other counties.

If the evidence in Hampshire and other counties is not there, the cull can be halted on your advice. Many badgers' lives hang in the balance on your reply – with around half the badger population killed in the last ten years through this badger cull (over 210,000), this is a critical decision for wildlife.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Jackson

Chair, Badger Trust

Cc Secretary of State for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, Chair Natural England
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Over 210,000 badgers have died

Badger setts across Elngland are lying empty for the first time in history.