The methods used to cull badgers in England's bovine TB control programme have been criticised for causing welfare harms. Understanding the evidence helps inform advocacy for better practice.
The welfare case against badger culling focuses primarily on wounding rates from controlled shooting. Badgers shot but not immediately killed may flee into their setts and die slowly from injuries. Field evidence from monitoring programmes has documented non-immediately-fatal wound rates. Cage trapping and shooting causes stress from the trapping period but results in more certain killing when carried out correctly. The welfare comparison between culling and vaccination is clear: vaccination causes no wounding welfare cost, while any shooting method involves some probability of non-fatal injury and prolonged suffering.