The UK badger cull, intended to reduce bovine tuberculosis transmission, involves the killing of hundreds of thousands of badgers and raises significant welfare and scientific questions.
Badger culling causes substantial welfare harm to hundreds of thousands of individual animals — through shooting (both controlled and free shooting), trapping, and the distress of population disruption. The welfare cost is only justified if the culling programme achieves meaningful TB reduction, a claim that remains scientifically contested. The precautionary principle suggests that where the welfare cost is large and the benefit is uncertain, the burden of proof for continuation should be high. Badger vaccination provides a welfare-preferable alternative that is increasingly used alongside culling in English TB policy.