Badger culling as a bovine TB management tool has been one of the most contentious wildlife welfare issues in Britain for over two decades, involving complex science and strong public values.
Badger culling for bTB control involves significant welfare costs to individual badgers through shooting, social group disruption, and perturbation effects on surviving badgers. The scientific debate about culling effectiveness is unresolved and contested, but the welfare costs are clear and documented. Non-instantaneous death rates in early culling operations were above acceptable thresholds, prompting method improvements. The availability of vaccination alternatives — both badger oral vaccination and cattle vaccination — means that continued large-scale lethal culling is increasingly difficult to justify on welfare grounds when effective non-lethal alternatives exist or are becoming available.