On Wednesday the Government finally laid out its plans to phase out the cull. However, rather than setting a clear date for the cull to end, it was announced that no new cull licences will be issued after 2022.

This leaves the door open for countless new badger cull licences to be approved before the end of 2022. As cull licences last up to four years, the culling of badgers is likely not to end until at least 2026. Over this period, 12,000 more badgers will be culled in Staffordshire and 176,000 UK-wide killed needlessly. 2,791 Staffordshire badgers were culled under the DEFRA licence in 2020

Whilst Staffordshire Wildlife Trust welcome the Government’s commitment to ending the Badger Cull, thousands of badgers will still be culled for years to come as a result of the latest announcement.

Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is calling on the Government to end the culling of badgers immediately.  They also want to see the Government set up a UK-wide programme of badger vaccination alongside the continued work to introduce a cattle vaccine and incentives for better biosecurity around cattle movements. The Government’s own research has shown that culling badgers is not the answer to bTB and does not address the primary cause of outbreaks; cattle to cattle transmission. Vaccinating badgers is cheaper, more humane and more environmentally friendly.