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Badger campaigners lose high court battle to limit cull Badger campaigners lose high court battle to limit cull
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An ecologist who claims extended badger culls risk making the bovine TB epidemic worse has lost a high court challenge against them. Badger culling will be extended across England on an open-ended basis, conservationists have warned, after the high court rejected a challenge to the legality of the government’s policy.
Badger culls were introduced in 2011 in a bid to reduce the spread of the disease, which results in the destruction of infected cattle herds. Licences to allow badger culling to continue in particular areas beyond a four-year period are legal, ruled Mr Justice Cranston, rejecting a challenge brought by the independent ecologist Tom Langton.
Government guidance issued last year expanded the existing cull programme to new areas in England and allowed “supplementary culling”. Lawyers for Langton argued that government guidance issued last year to expand the existing cull to new areas in England and allow “supplementary culling” in established cull zones was a “significant departure” from the government’s previous policy. They also argued that a consultation carried out before its introduction was flawed and the culling licences issued by the government’s conservation watchdog, Natural England, were unlawful.
Tom Langton, an ecology consultant and member of the Badger Trust, asked the court to quash the government’s policy and the licences issued under it by Natural England, arguing they were unlawful. The judge said that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ consultation was “in some respects unimpressive”, but added: “However, it does not meet the high threshold of being so clearly and radically wrong as to render it procedurally unfair and thus unlawful.”
His lawyers argued at a hearing in July that the guidance was a “significant departure” from the government’s previous policy on culling and that a consultation carried out before its introduction was flawed. Dominic Dyer, chief executive of the Badger Trust, which supported Langton’s case, warned that the verdict gave the environment secretary, Michael Gove, “the green light to push the badger to the verge of local extinction in many parts of England”.
His case, brought against the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, and Natural England, was dismissed by Mr Justice Cranston in London on Wednesday. He said: “By ruling in the high court today that supplementary cull licences are lawful, farmers and landowners across England will now be able to kill badgers on an open ended basis with little training and no effective independent scrutiny.”
The judge said the consultation was “in some respects unimpressive”, but added: “However, it does not meet the high threshold of being so clearly and radically wrong as to render it procedurally unfair and thus unlawful.” Dyer said that the ruling undermined the legally protected status of the badger and could result in more than 100,000 badgers being killed by 2020. He added: “This is despite the fact that the government have provided no reliable evidence to prove this mass slaughter of a protected species is having any significant impact on lowering bovine TB in cattle in or around the cull zones.”
Measures to reduce bovine TB were introduced in 2011 and included the granting of licences to shoot badgers, which can act as a “reservoir” for the disease and transmit it to cattle. The badger cull has proved controversial since it was introduced in two areas in 2013 with the aim of reducing cases of bovine TB in cattle. With bTB in England still rising and 29,000 cattle being slaughtered in 2016 at a cost of £100m, the cull has been expanded to 21 “zones” in western England last year, with 19,274 badgers shot and killed.
The new guidance extended culling and allowed it to be continued for a longer period, without being reviewed. Since the guidelines were issued, Natural England has issued licences for “supplementary culling” in Somerset and Gloucestershire and new licences for culling have been granted for parts of Cheshire, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire – although the exact locations of the cull zones are not known. In the high court, Cranston said the environment secretary’s chief scientific adviser and the government’s chief veterinary officer supported the extended culling.
Langton’s lawyers told the court in July that a 2007 report following a series of badger culling trials concluded that culling could not “meaningfully contribute to the control of cattle TB in Britain”.
They also argued badger culling is a “scientifically, politically and morally controversial” means of preventing the spread of bovine TB, which can also be transmitted through other animals and is mainly passed between cattle.
Cranston said the environment secretary’s chief scientific adviser and the government’s chief veterinary officer supported the extended culling.
He added: “Against this background, a policy of maintaining a reduced badger population through supplementary culling cannot be said to be irrational when coupled with the commitment to change tack as evidence became available.”He added: “Against this background, a policy of maintaining a reduced badger population through supplementary culling cannot be said to be irrational when coupled with the commitment to change tack as evidence became available.”
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