Badgers in England have been culled by the millions as part of bovine TB control, raising profound welfare and scientific controversy.
Badgers are highly social, long-lived mammals who form cohesive family groups and experience social loss. Culling operations disrupt social structures, causing surviving badgers to roam more widely — the "perturbation effect" that paradoxically spreads disease. Free-shooting at night raises welfare concerns about wounding rates, while cage-trapping causes acute stress to a species unused to confinement. The scientific case for culling over vaccination has always been contested. A welfare-first approach would accelerate deployment of oral vaccination baits, reduce cattle-to-cattle transmission routes, and phase out lethal control.