Part of the solution...

Travelling around the country talking to various groups about wildlife and veterinary matters it's almost inevitable that I will get a question about my stance on the badger cull. It's almost assumed that as a vet and a wildlife enthusiast that I am in a position to make a 'qualified' argument for or against the various measures proposed to control the dreadful disease that is Bovine Tuberculosis. 

In short, I'm not. 

And neither, I hasten to add, are the many extremely polarised, vocal 'commentators' on either side of the divide. I'm not an epidemiologist and no longer work in cattle industry - so I don't pretend that I have the answers.

However I do want to help if I can. This is why I found myself getting out of bed on my days off at 3.40am earlier this year to help vaccinate badgers. I had become a licensed badger vaccinator and was joining The Cheshire Wildlife Trust on a dairy farm close to where I live.

Catching badgers for vaccination is not straightforward, as I found out. The team had previously surveyed the farms many different setts and looked for activity. Some of the setts were always populated but there are outlying ones that are used temporarily (it's not just MP's who have second homes). The traps were put in place and baited with peanuts nightly but wired open to allow the badgers to pop in and out for a snack without being caught. This was to allow the animals to become familiar with the traps and hopefully increase numbers caught on the trapping nights.

To minimise stress to the animals, it's only permissible to trap badgers on 2 separate nights over a period of 3 days. After 2 weeks of nightly baiting traps to encourage as many badgers to enter the traps for a feed it's tense waiting to see whether the work was worth it.

Approaching the traps we would quietly access whether we had an individual caught (and importantly whether that individual was a badger! We did manage to trap a couple of pheasants, a fox and a rabbit - everyone loves peanuts!).

Having seen lots of wild species trapped and darted in Africa I was expecting a real struggle to administer the vaccines but most of the animals were very calm throughout. The cubs were the wriggly, noisy ones but the adults could be easily distracted by a stick or other object to sniff while the needle was gently poked into an available muscle.

To prevent us giving a second dose to a badger stupid enough to fall for the peanut trap the following morning we then had to clip a small patch of hair off the badger's back and apply a yellow stock-marker paint spot to the same area. This was often the most fiddly part of the operation but again distracting the badger with something to sniff we got the job done.
Once we logged all the relevant information the badger was free to leave and hammered off into the undergrowth.
They really are the most amazing animals up close. Solid, strong, compact and beautifully marked. It was such a privilege to get to see such a secretive animal.

Thanks to John Hawkins for the use of his photos

Hopefully, these vaccinated animals will help protect their sets from the spread of TB and also the cattle that graze alongside them. It's not cheap for the farmer or the charity but both want to see this project succeed.
Vaccination is likely not to be the entire solution to the problem and I fear that culling, despite the negative publicity it attracts, may have to be employed in some areas to get the situation under control. The 'holy grail' of an effective oral vaccine for badgers that could increase numbers vaccinated, reduce costs of deployment and increase percentages of sets actually vaccinated may be available soon, but until then it's lots of early mornings for this hard working team. If you feel like supporting them, then why not keep their morale up and donate a couple of quid to keep them going...

Click here to visit the Badger Appeal page