Bovine tuberculosis control in UK cattle involves testing, culling and the contentious badger cull, with welfare implications for both cattle and wildlife at every stage.
Bovine tuberculosis control involves a tragic triangle of welfare harms: cattle slowly dying from respiratory disease, cattle culled when testing positive (often before developing disease symptoms), and badgers killed in a cull policy whose scientific justification remains contested. The most welfare-compatible solution — oral badger vaccination combined with cattle vaccination when approved — eliminates the need for lethal badger culling while preventing disease in both cattle and badgers. The current policy of killing badgers while awaiting cattle vaccine approval continues to impose welfare costs on wildlife while failing to solve the underlying problem. Accelerating cattle vaccine approval and expanding oral badger vaccination are the key welfare and policy priorities.