Badger Vaccination

Cheshire Wildlife Trust to vaccinate badgers against bovine TB

Cheshire Wildlife Trust will begin a badger vaccination programme at one of its sites in the region this autumn.

The move comes in response to Defra’s decision to run trial badger culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset, and will take place at the same time as a vaccination programme in neighbouring Shropshire, on a Shropshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve.

The Trust does not consider culling badgers to be an effective method of tackling bovine tuberculosis (bTB) and considers that vaccination of badgers against bTB, along with improved bio-security measures, will help the long term disease control.

On the Cheshire and Shropshire sites this autumn, badgers will be cage trapped and injected with BadgerBCG vaccine. The programme will continue for five years.

“Vaccination offers a way of tackling the disease without any associated negative impact such as the perturbation effect that is bought about by culling” said Helen Trotman, who will be carrying out the vaccinations in Shropshire.

The ‘perturbation effect’ suggests that following a cull, any remaining infected badgers may disperse from their home territory and spread the disease across a wider area than initially affected.

“The Government has culled badgers for the past 30 years without any significant reduction of TB incidence in cattle. This is a complex problem that will not easily be solved but the Trust wants to do something positive and we know vaccination can significantly reduce the disease burden in badgers.” added Helen Trotman.

Charlotte Harris, director of conservation at Cheshire Wildlife Trust added: “As land managers with cattle at the heart of our conservation grazing strategy throughout the Cheshire region, the vaccination programme gives us a unique opportunity to explore how we can tackle this disease in a scientifically-led and sustainable way”.

The Wildlife Trusts are conscious of the impact this disease has on the farming community and the need to put the right measures in place to tackle it. To raise awareness of the difficulties of controlling bTB, Shropshire Wildlife Trust will host a forum in May where the latest policy and research will be presented to invited groups.

Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust was the first voluntary organisation to pay for the deployment of the BadgerBCG vaccine in 2011. In addition, Somerset and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trusts will vaccinate in the trial cull areas.

To find out more about Bovine TB and badgers see www.wildlifetrusts.org/badgers-and-bovineTB