DEFRA have rather belatedly ( 30th March) issued the outcome of last years Badger culling operations. Culls were across 61 areas, over 20 counties, from c. 25,000 sq.km.

Culls totalled 39,035 : - 5348 supplementary culls from 8 counties, And 33,687 from Avon, Berks, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Devon, Derbyshire, Dorset, Glos., Hants, Hereford, Leics, Lincs, Oxon, Shrops, Somerset, Staffs, Warks, Worcs, Wilts .

According to Tim Hill of Natural England, and Chief Vet Christine Middlemiss, this very successful cull achieved the necessary figure out of 75,000 initially targeted, and 70 % reduction of the badger population .And , they say, since badger culls have halved cattle TB previously this ought to achieve the reductions in cattle TB " associated with " earlier culls, Godfray 208, Downs 2019.

So some 176, 928 badgers have been culled since 2013. But there has never been any self-sustaining reservoir of badger TB, across the Woodchester badgers, or the 100 sq.km. RBCT cull areas, or absurdly across the whole H.R.A , according to C Middlemiss and George Eustice. So , the few and only TB badgers occur as a dead-end spillover from cattle. Only 1515 TB badgers out of 11,000 culled from 1900 sq.km. in the RBCT, 400 TB badgers from 576 sq.km. in Downs 2019. So this mass cull will again have produced c. 1 TB badger / sq.km. Which cannot have had the slightest effect in "stopping the spread of cattle TB". So these dead-end spillover TB badger culls are utterly pointless, and actually licenced unlawfully under the 1992 Badgers Act.

The new 2021 DEFRA Guidance to Natural England on badger cull licencing is still based on a selective interpretation of the Godfray 2018 interpretation of the RBCT. So the recent debate in parliament as to whether culls work or not was inspired by fake pseudoscience (1, 2, 3 ) .The House of Commons library briefing paper, the DEFRA guidance to natural england on culls is still based on the absurd idea that there is a self-sustaining reservoir of badger TB, across the H.R.A. , so a four year cull halved cattle TB, in Godfray 2018, 66 or 37 % drop in Downs 2019. In fact , the very few and only TB badgers occur as a dead-end spillover , so halving of cattle TB in 2007, 2 years after the cull ended, was simply routine cattle controls.

Several recent letters in vet record, have pointed out that there is no evidence the 140,000 badger cull since 2013, had no effect on cattle TB, Tom Langton, Paul Torgerson etc. Perhaps unsurprisingly the DEFRA response, dismisses Tom Langton's (4) very simple observation is that tightening cattle controls, are the way to stop TB spread. Wales in fact went back in 2009 to Area Eradication , with annual surveillance testing, and pre and post-movement testing to stop spread between HRA - Edge/ Intermediate - LRA. With greater use of IFN, PCR on samples (2), IDEXX or Interferon for chronic herds . TB halved , without any badger culls , disallowed in Wales, since 2009.

No-one seems to have noticed, but there is a very simple answer to this $64, 000 question of whether culls work or not . In Fact, embarassing "Shock re-discovery ", badgers have never actually been "the cause" of the spread of CATTLE TB. The new unconfirmed and confirmed breakdowns are normal spread within entirely within the cattle population. There has never been any self-sustaining reservoir of badger TB, No-one in 50 years has explained how badgers might give cows a respiratory lung infection. They don't, ten badger-cattle contact studies found that badgers avoid cattle at pasture and on farms So few actual TB badgers are a dead-end spillover.

M. Hancox,ex-government TB panel, Stroud