Badger Culling

Badger Culling in the UK

In 2013, the Westminster government instigated a policy of culling badgers under licence as part of its strategy to control bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in England, a disease which results in the premature slaughter of tens of thousands of farmed cattle each year. By the end of 2024, close to a quarter of a million badgers had been killed under licence across roughly a quarter of England’s land area. Over three quarters of these badgers were targeted using ‘controlled shooting’ a method considered inhumane by veterinary authorities and the government’s own appointed advisory body. The overwhelming majority of the badgers will have been perfectly healthy. 

A comprehensive analysis of government data published in the prestigious journal Veterinary Record in March 2022, co-authored by Born Free’s Head of Policy Dr Mark Jones, found that badger culling has had no significant impact on the incidence of bTB among cattle herds. While bovine TB rates among cattle herds in England are slowly declining, changes to cattle testing and the way cattle are managed are far more likely to be responsible for the reduction in disease rates. Similar declines have been achieved in Wales, where the government has not licenced badger culls but has instead focussed on improving cattle testing, farm biosecurity measures, and cattle movement controls.

In spite of this, successive Westminster governments have persisted with the culls in England, which could result in badgers disappearing altogether across large swathes of the English countryside where they have lived since the ice age, with significant impacts on the wider ecology.

While recognising that the impact of bTB, and the measures aimed at controlling it, can be devastating for farmers and their businesses and come at a significant cost to the taxpayer, Born Free has consistently opposed the policy of badger culling on the grounds that it is unscientific, and that culling is ineffective, inhumane and unnecessary. Since 2019 we have spearheaded efforts to expose what we believe to be the government’s derogation of its international legal responsibility to protect badgers.

In its 2024 election manifesto, the Labour party described the badger culls as ‘ineffective’, giving us real hope that the new Labour administration would bring the culls to an immediate end. However, the Labour government continued to issue culling licences in both 2024 and 2025, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands more badgers.

At the end of January 2026, so-called ‘intensive’ and ‘supplementary’ culls finally came to an end, and the government has said it will not issue any further licences of this type. However, a badger cull is still ongoing in Cumbria, casting a shadow over claims that the policy has truly been consigned to the past. While we welcome the news that, at least for now, no new intensive or supplementary cull licences will be issued, the door remains open for culling to be reintroduced under different guises or in response to political pressure, and the government’s proposed expansion of badger vaccination keeps the spotlight on badgers as a problem that needs to be dealt with, even though the credible evidence says otherwise.

Born Free’s campaign to see a permanent end the cruel and costly culls must therefore continue.  

We work with partner organisations, veterinary authorities, decision-makers and the wider public to promote evidence-based wildlife management that focuses on minimising negative animal welfare and conservation impacts, and promotes alternative, humane approaches to disease control that do not involve lethal wildlife interventions.