Argument: Culling could increase rather than reduce TB

There have been trials of culls of badgers before and they have not been successful. In a randomised badger culling trial in 30 areas of England each measuring 100km2 it was found that “removing badgers by culling was found to disrupt their social organisation, causing remaining badgers to range more widely both inside and around the outside of culled areas.” The result of increased movement was “Proactive culling was associated with a 25% increase in the incidence of cattle TB on neighbouring un-culled land.” [1] Reactive culling can result in even higher increases with the risk of bovine TB more than doubling. [2] Clearly this could be dealt with through a complete cull that would not encourage movement of badgers but as the badger remains protected this is not possible. There are also difficulties with knowing how many badgers there really are because they live underground and only come out a night. Counting by numbers of setts is unreliable when there may be many that are disused or where there are badgers that use more than one sett. [3]

[1] Bourne, John, et al., ‘Final Report of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB’, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20081027092120/http://defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/isg/pdf/final_report.pdf Pp.19-20

[2] Imperial College London News Release, ‘badger Localised reactive badger culling raises bovine tuberculosis risk, new analysis confirms’, Imperial College London, 13 July 2011, http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_13-7-2011-9-59-29?newsid=100586

[3] Carrington, Damian, ‘Counting the cost: fears badger cull could worsen bovine TB crisis’, The Guardian, 27 May 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/27/badger-cull-bovine-tuberculosis

Candidate 1: "In this instance the question is one of balancing suffering. Yes culling will result in a certain amount of suffering from badgers but not culling and letting TB run rampant causes suffering in cattle. To humans cattle are much more valuable than badgers as we have several uses for their produce. It is clear that if there has to be suffering it should be badgers, not cattle that do so."
Candidate 2: "A vaccine for cattle does not yet exist in a form where it is possible to tell the difference between a vaccinated cow and a cow infected by bovine TB. This means that vaccinated cattle would have to be treated the same way as infected cattle so would not be salable. Vaccination is not 100% effective and would run the risk of other countries banning exports. [1] Vaccination of badgers on the other hand is costly with the first phase of the welsh trials having amounted to £662 per jab despite the vaccine itself costing much less. [2]

[1] ‘Cattle Vaccination’, Department for Environment, Food &amp; Rural Affairs, 24 January 2013, http://www.defra.gov.uk/animal-diseases/a-z/bovine-tb/vaccination/cattle-vaccination/

[2] ‘NFU Cymru slams bovine TB vaccination costs’, NFU Cymru, 29 January 2013, http://www.nfu-cymru.org.uk/sectors/cross-cutting-issues/bovine-tb/nfu-cymru-slams-bovine-tb-vaccination-costs/"
Candidate 3: "As opposition itself has stated we do not know the exact cause of the transmission of bovine TB and the increase in cases. Badgers are almost certain to be one cause if the increase so they must be dealt with. There are already controls on the movement of cattle; they need to have tests first and this has not halted the increase so something else needs to be tried."
Candidate 4: "An area of 100km2 is not particularly large thus making it possible for badgers to be moving into areas where there has been no culling. In a more general cull this would not be possible as the badgers would simply be moving into other areas which have also seen culls."

An area of 100km2 is not particularly large thus making it possible for badgers to be moving into areas where there has been no culling. In a more general cull this would not be possible as the badgers would simply be moving into other areas which have also seen culls.
