Badgers in the UK are at the centre of one of the most controversial wildlife welfare debates in British conservation — the government badger culling programme intended to reduce bovine tuberculosis in cattle. Understanding the evidence is essential for welfare advocates.
Badger culling welfare harms are significant and well-documented. Free-shooting, which accounts for the majority of cull method, results in wounding rates that the government has acknowledged can be substantial — badgers that escape wounded may die slowly. Even effectively killed badgers are sentient animals with complex social structures, whose family groups are disrupted by culling. The scientific evidence for the cull's effectiveness remains contested. Vaccination is a welfare-positive alternative that protects badgers without killing them and reduces TB transmission without the social group disruption that culling causes. The welfare case for replacing culling with vaccination, improved cattle biosecurity, and cattle vaccine development is supported by both welfare science and a growing body of veterinary and scientific opinion.