Ashton Vale and Bristol Wildlife Group

Wednesday, 21 August 2024

Show your support for our call to End the Cull and Save Badgers

Please sign the petition

Following the publication of our report, Tackling Bovine TB Together, we call for an immediate end to all badger culls operated by the UK government in England. Will you join us?

Over 230,000 protected badgers, half the British population, have been killed.

Badger setts across England are lying empty for the first time in history. One of our most iconic native wild animals is being wiped from parts of our landscape because of the badger cull.

Just imagine a precious mammal that has thrived for 250,000 years in this land, wiped out entirely from parts of the country.

However, despite growing public and scientific opposition, the UK government is still focused on the ineffective and unproven ‘sledgehammer’ of badger culling to end bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in English cattle herds.

The UK government says the badger cull is a cornerstone of their policy to stop the spread of bTB. Yet cattle spread over 94% of bTB, so why blame badgers? Especially when every cow killed due to bTB has tested positive for the disease, and no one ever tests a badger.

Cattle measures are the best way to control bTB: enhanced biosecurity, better cattle testing, and an effective cattle vaccine. Wales and Scotland do not cull badgers and have more success reducing bTB in cattle than England.

Solutions to bTB should be based on science, cost and animal welfare grounds. The badger cull fails on all of these.

The badger cull is an unnecessary and wasteful policy – a national wildlife tragedy at a time of critical nature depletion. We need to End The Cull.

Sign our petition using our simple form and help us save badgers.

https://www.badgertrust.org.uk/end-the-cull/end-the-cull-petition