Campaigners say culling plans ‘may be unlawful’

Defra has been warned its plans to allow further badger culling in its new bTB policy plans for England may be unlawful because of flaws in its consultation process.

The claim has been made in a legal letter on behalf of two wildlife organisations, which alleged the department failed to properly set out its case for the proposals.

Officials said Defra is in receipt of the letter and will respond to it “in due course”, but they insisted that any future culls would only take place in areas of high infection where badgers are found to be a factor in the spread.

Justification

Solicitors acting for the Badger Trust and Wild Justice wrote to Defra on 22 March to demand it publish key details of the justification for its policy plans, which had only been unveiled eight days earlier.

Although the letter, which was subsequently made public on 26 March, stressed the groups are keen to take part in the consultation process, it also highlighted eight key areas where they believe further information should be disclosed.

The issues raised included the economic case for action, its expected effectiveness, the measures that would be taken to prevent local extinction events and the relative humaneness of the proposed approach compared to alternative disease control methods.

The other points questioned included how it would be determined that badgers had infected cattle rather than the other way round, the basis for culling decisions to be taken, the parties that would be licensed to carry out cull activity and the planned approach to monitoring and surveillance.

Unlawful

The letter from the legal firm Leigh Day warned: “Unless those steps are taken, our clients consider that a decision to proceed with the proposal taken on the basis of this consultation would be unlawful.”

It pointed out that a similar process undertaken by Defra’s equivalent department in Northern Ireland was found to be unlawful last year following a separate legal challenge.

The document also called for a longer consultation period once any additional information is published, arguing that the current process, which continues until 22 April, was “neither reasonable nor proportionate” because of the amount of scientific evidence to be considered.

A Defra spokesperson told Vet Times: “We have received a letter from lawyers representing Wild Justice and the Badger Trust; we are considering this and will respond in due course.”

Although the letter did request a response from Defra by 28 March, a joint statement by the two organisations stressed that a decision on whether to take further action would not be taken before they receive a reply.

‘Assault’

However, the Badger Trust and Wild Justice said their supporters were already angry at what they saw as a “further planned assault on a much-loved native species”.

Around 210,000 badgers are estimated to have been killed over the first 10 years of the culling programme, which began in 2013, and the trust claimed that total could reach 280,000 next year.

But while the new policy proposals would allow culling to continue indefinitely in certain areas, Defra insisted that would only take place in “targeted parts of the High-Risk and Edge Area” zones, where there are high levels of cattle infection and evidence pointing to badger involvement in spreading the disease.