Will the Bern Convention come to the rescue of England’s beleaguered badgers?
In June 2025, the Bureau of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, also known as the Bern Convention, met in Strasbourg. On its agenda was the longstanding complaint against the UK government’s policy of culling badgers as part of its strategy for controlling bovine TB in cattle in England.
Badgers are a protected species under the Convention, to which the UK has been a signatory since 1982. Culling is only permitted under strict circumstances in order to prevent serious damage to livestock, but only if no satisfactory alternative exists and if the culls will not be detrimental to the survival of badger populations.
However, despite mounting evidence that badger culling has little or no impact on the spread of the disease among cattle, successive governments have licensed badger culls across increasing areas of the West of England since 2013 that have resulted in roughly 250,000 badgers being killed, wiping them out from places they have inhabited for millennia, and using killing methods that have been shown to be inhumane.
Born Free, together with the Badger Trust and Eurogroup for Animals, submitted a complaint to the Convention against the policy in 2019, and have repeatedly submitted evidence since showing that the culls are ineffective, unscientific, inhumane, and risk local extinction. In spite of this, the culling continues.
In a letter to the UK government following its June meeting, the Bern Convention’s Bureau effectively upheld the complaint, stating that “the maintenance of badger culling is not only inconsistent with the stated policy of the current UK Government, but also of published scientific opinion.” The Bureau called on the UK government “to move with greater urgency and progress on the ending of the badger culling policy as there are clear satisfactory alternatives available.”
On 21st July, Born Free wrote to the Secretary of State at DEFRA urging him to bring an immediate and permanent end to the culling of badgers, given the policy is in clear breach of the government’s international wildlife protection commitments. To date, no response has been received.
Born Free’s Head of Policy, Dr Mark Jones, stated:
“The Bern Convention has finally accepted that the UK government’s attempts to justify killing badgers under the Convention’s rules simply don’t wash. One more dead badger is one too many. We implore the government to bring the culling of badgers to an immediate and permanent end, and to initiate meaningful and inclusive dialogue with all stakeholders on alternative strategies for controlling bovine TB among cattle.”
The Labour party’s 2024 manifesto admission that the culls are ineffective further erodes any legal basis for their continuation. Yet the Labour government has licensed further culls since it was elected in 2024, choosing to ignore the advice of Natural England’s own Head of Science. The ongoing deliberate slaughter of a protected native species, backed by state licence, is both ethically indefensible and legally unsound.
Dr Jones continued:
“The Bern Convention demands that signatories promote conservation policies and avoid measures harmful to protected species, yet the UK Government continues to implement a policy which has been widely discredited by independent scientists and condemned by wildlife protection groups. The June 2025 Bern Bureau meeting must be viewed as a pivotal moment. Unless the government heeds both the Convention and the evidence and halts these destructive culls immediately, its claims of compliance with its international commitments will remain a façade.”
Find out more about Born Free’s longstanding efforts to end the badger cull: