The Programme for Government (PfG) contains a commitment to extend the badger vaccination programme nationwide and to end badger culling as soon as possible, consistent with the best scientific and veterinary advice. Badger culling has been demonstrated to be highly effective in reducing the burden of bovine TB on Irish family farms for over 20 years. However, my Department is committed to progressing this PfG commitment which is more sustainable in the long term for both ecological and disease reasons. This is possible because badger vaccination has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing badger-to-badger TB transmission and not to be inferior to badger culling when introduced to areas with low badger densities and reduced prevalence of TB.
The TB Programme will now be subject to a period of enhancement in line with the renewed TB Eradication Strategy published on 27th January https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/a6130-bovine-tb-eradication-strategy-2021-2030/. Implementation of the Strategy will be overseen by the TB Stakeholder Forum. The Forum will be supported by a number of Working Groups including a Scientific Working Group which may be tasked with examining certain aspects of the TB Programme including transmission of disease from wildlife. The Scientific Working Group will be comprised of recognised experts with a track record of peer-reviewed publication.
Supported by scientific research, the current policy is to vaccinate badgers to prevent disease outbreaks and to cull badgers where necessary in response to outbreaks in areas where epidemiological investigations have demonstrated the link between badgers and TB breakdowns on cattle farms. Areas where badger culling may previously have taken place are being incorporated into the badger vaccination programme on an ongoing basis but only when any underlying disease spread to cattle from wildlife has been suppressed.
Since the commencement of badger vaccination in 2018, 19,079 Km2 of land has been switched to vaccination on a phased basis and this will continue. The scientific evidence for the efficacy of badger culling is well established and the evidence to support badger vaccination within the TB eradication scheme is being added to on an ongoing basis as additional research is published in peer reviewed scientific journals. My Department is currently collaborating with University College Dublin and the University of Waginengen to validate the efficacy of vaccination in the field and to model where higher risks exist at a local farm level which will support better targeting of TB controls in future years.
As the level of badger vaccination increases, it is expected that there will be fewer wildlife-driven TB outbreaks in cattle and thus less need for badger culling. It is likely, however, that some level of badger culling will remain necessary until TB levels have significantly reduced.
DAFM provides advice to farmers on how to reduce the risk of TB from wildlife which can be accessed at: www.bovinetb.ie
The scientific veterinary publications underpinning this policy are listed below.
- Efficacy of badger culling
Badgers were first identified as being susceptible to infection with Mycobacterium bovis (M.bovis), the bacterium that causes bovine tuberculosis (bTB), during the 1970s. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) funded research which concluded that badgers were likely to have been involved in the recycling of bTB in cattle and concluded that eradication of bTB from the national herd would not be feasible until TB in badgers was addressed and controlled.
Eves, J.A., 1993. The East Offaly Badger Research project: an interim report. The Badger. In: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, pp. 166–173.
Eves, J.A., 1999. Impact of badger removal on bovine tuberculosis in east County Offaly. Ir. Vet. J. 52, 199–203
O’Mairtin, D., Williams, D.H., Griffin, J.M., Dolan, L.A., Eves, J.A., 1998. The effect of a badger removal programme on the incidence of tuberculosis in an Irish cattle population. Prev. Vet. Med. 34, 47–56.
O’Mairtin, D., Williams, D.H., Dolan, L., Eves, J.A., Collins, J.D., 1998. The influence of selected herd factors and a badger-intervention tuberculosis-control programme on the risk of a herd-level trade restriction to a bovine population in Ireland. Prev. Vet. Med. 35, 79–90.
Griffin et al Griffin, J.M., More, S.J., Clegg, T.A., Collins, J.D., O’Boyle, I., Williams, D.H., Kelly, G.E., Costello, E., Sleeman, D.P., O’Shea, F., Duggan, M., Murphy, J., Lavin, D.P.T., 2005. Tuberculosis in cattle: the results of the four-area project. Irish Veterinary Journal 58, 629-636.
Griffin, J.M., Williams, D.H., Kelly, G.E., Clegg, T.A., O’Boyle, I., Collins, J.D., More, S.J., 2005. The impact of badger removal on the control of tuberculosis in cattle herds in Ireland. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 67, 237-266.
- Efficacy of badger vaccination
A field trial over 755 Km2 in Co. Kilkenny using the BCG vaccine and a blind placebo demonstrated that badger vaccination, with an efficacy of 60%, could lower the R value (reproductive ratio) of badger to badger TB spread from 1.22 to 0.5
Gormley, E., Ní Bhuachalla, D., O’Keeffe, J., Murphy, D., Aldwell, F.E., Fitzsimons, T., Stanley, P., Tratalos, J.A., McGrath, G., Fogarty, N., Kenny, K., More, S.J., Messam, L.McV., Corner, L.A.L., 2017. Oral vaccination of free-living badgers (Meles meles) with bacille Calmette Guérin (BCG) vaccine confers protection against tuberculosis.
Aznar, I., Frankena, K., More, S.J., O’Keeffe, J., McGrath, G., de Jong, M.C.M., 2018. Quantification of Mycobacterium bovis transmission in a badger vaccine field trial. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 149, 29-37
- Vaccination as a replacement for culling
The Non-Inferiority Trial was established in seven areas of the country over seven years, finishing in 2017. With the efficacy of BCG vaccination in reducing the spread of Mycobacterium Bovis between badgers proven in the Kilkenny trial, this trial sought to examine if vaccinating badgers would keep spread to cattle suppressed. A large part of a county was subject to badger vaccination and was compared to culling badgers (in response to TB breakdowns) in another similarly sized part of the county. While TB increased in some of the trial areas, the overall result of the trial was that badger vaccination was not inferior to badger culling in terms of spread to cattle.
Martin, S.W., O’Keeffe, J., Byrne, A.W., Rosen, L.E., White, P.W., McGrath, G., 2020. Is moving from targeted culling to BCG-vaccination of badgers (Meles meles) associated with an unacceptable increased incidence of cattle herd tuberculosis in the Republic of Ireland? A practical non-inferiority wildlife intervention study in the Republic of Ireland (2011-2017). Preventive Veterinary Medicine 179,
