Badger social structure is complex, with setts housing multi-generational clans, and management interventions including culling disrupt these social bonds in ways with significant welfare implications.
Badger management for bovine TB control creates profound welfare tensions. Lethal culling causes death for hundreds of thousands of individuals, while cage-trapping causes acute stress through confinement and handling. The disruption of complex badger social groups by removing individuals causes lasting psychological effects in survivors who must reorganise unstable social hierarchies. Vaccination as an alternative to culling prevents both the direct welfare cost of lethal control and the social disruption effects. The welfare case for vaccination over culling is strong, and the evidence for culling's epidemiological effectiveness is contested.