Badgers and bovine tuberculosis represent one of Britain's most contentious wildlife management disputes. Understanding the evidence helps evaluate welfare implications for badgers, cattle, and the policy debate.
Badger culling raises significant welfare concerns. Licensed shooting results in a proportion of animals that are not killed immediately and may die slowly from wounds. Cage trapping followed by shooting imposes pre-slaughter confinement stress. Vaccination offers a welfare-superior alternative that achieves disease control without killing, but requires sustained infrastructure investment. The welfare costs of culling must be weighed against the welfare costs of bovine TB in cattle, including slaughter of test-positive herds.