The total spent on badger vaccination in the past ten years in County Wicklow:
The information requested is not readily available. DAFM’s Wildlife Programme is delivered by 16 Regional Veterinary offices throughout the country (RVOs). It involves the use of civilian operatives, equipment and supplies (e.g. restraints, anaesthetic, vaccination (BCG)) which are provided to DAFM under various contracts for the provision of goods and services. Orders made by DAFM under these contracts (and related expenditure) are based on the requirements of the Programme as a whole, rather than the needs of individual RVOs. While the allocation of supplies to RVOs are made from a central stores according to RVO demands, records are not maintained in a manner that identifies the total spend on badger vaccination or culling on a county by county basis.
Badgers have been vaccinated in a small area in East Wicklow for a number of years as part of a TCD/DAFM collaborative research project on the ecology of badger social groups and the M11 motorway development. (DAFM provided €259k funding.)
In 2018 badger vaccination became part of DAFM national policy and is now subsumed into the overall badger programme in Enniscorthy RVO which covers East Wicklow. Naas RVO covers West Wicklow where no badger vaccination currently takes place.
The number of badgers vaccinated:
|
Year
|
Badgers vaccinated
|
|
2010
|
24
|
|
2011
|
11
|
|
2012
|
16
|
|
2013
|
9
|
|
2014
|
18
|
|
2015
|
25
|
|
2016
|
30
|
|
2017
|
11
|
|
2019
|
35
|
|
2020
|
34
|
|
2021
|
34
|
|
Total
|
247
|
Vaccination - a means of dealing with TB
A field trial in County Kilkenny using the BCG vaccine and a blind placebo demonstrated that 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. The Non-Inferiority Trial was established in 7 areas of the country over 7 years, finishing in 2017. With the efficacy of BCG vaccination in reducing the spread of M.Bovis between badgers proven, this trial examined 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.
Further Information
- The policy is to convert all areas to vaccination when the conditions for conversion apply.
- As part of the above ecological study, when the N11 was upgraded to M11 status, 90% of the badgers in the vicinity of the road building were vaccinated to mitigate against spread of TB into adjacent cattle populations. Badgers were monitored over many years. This information is published in peer reviewed journals.
