The badger cull in England to control bovine tuberculosis in cattle remains deeply controversial, with major welfare implications for hundreds of thousands of badgers.
The humaneness of free-running badger culling has been a major welfare concern, with reports of animals taking minutes to die from gunshot wounds. Wounding rates remain a contested issue between government and independent monitors. Beyond individual suffering, culling operations cause disruption to surviving badger social groups (perturbation effect), potentially spreading disease further. The scientific debate over culling effectiveness continues, while vaccination programs demonstrate that non-lethal alternatives can reduce bovine TB. The welfare cost to badgers must be weighed against the suffering of cattle in TB breakdowns.