Imperial College London - TB badger cull 'not effective'

The culling of badgers has been found to be an inefficient and short-term solution to preventing bovine tuberculosis (bTB), a disease affecting cattle that cost the UK Government more than £100 million in 2008. For the past 30 years, the controversial randomised badger-culling trial has been used as a prevention technique involving cage trapping, snaring or gassing. The study, conducted by Imperial College London in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London, showed that although initially successful, four years after the culls they were found to have no detectable effect on bTB prevention. The culling was also found to cost more than twice as much as it saved farmers.