The UK government culls hundreds of thousands of badgers annually as a bovine TB control measure, a policy contested on both welfare and scientific grounds.
Badger culling causes direct welfare harm through trap stress, injury from ineffective shooting, and the disruption of social groups. The scientific justification for culling over vaccination is disputed, making the welfare cost potentially unnecessary. Badgers are protected under UK law except where specific licensing permits culling, yet the scale of the licensed cull exceeds that which the science clearly supports.