As the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust team responsible for delivering our badger vaccination programme in the Vale of Belvoir comes to the end of this year’s vaccination season it is frustrating and upsetting to reflect on the fact that the Government has issued yet more licences for badger culling – including for areas where these fascinating and sociable native mammals have been vaccinated with public money and charitable donations.

The latest round of licences covers 33 existing and seven new areas in England for 2021. To take one example, badger culling across the border in Derbyshire, where our sister Wildlife Trust has blazed a trail with successful vaccinations, continues and enters its second year. Up to 3218 badgers could die in Derbyshire this autumn.

Up to 75,000 badgers could be killed across England this year – taking the total to around 200,000 shot badgers since culling began. These new licenses will allow badgers to be shot and killed over a period of four years in an attempt to control bTb in cattle.This increase in culling is despite a continued lack of evidence that killing badgers reduces the spread of bovine TB in cattle. A report by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust last year suggested that the evidence used to support the cull licences is both flawed and inaccurate. We know that the main cause of the spread of bovine TB is cattle-to-cattle transmission. Badgers are clearly not the main culprit; but we face a situation where thousands are being killed each year.