Bovine TB: Research project summary
Project SE3032: The demographic, ecological and epidemiological consequences of culling badgers.
Project duration: 3 years
The aim of this work was to obtain data to investigate culling induced perturbation of a badger population at a study site in, and adjacent to, a proactive treatment area of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial.
The study used accepted ecological techniques to monitor badger ranging behaviour via radio-tracking and bait marking, as well as Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) sampling via a live test and post mortem analysis of found dead individuals. These latter techniques are known to be relatively insensitive and are assumed to underestimate the numbers of infected individuals.
Overall, the numbers of animals found was low despite intensive trapping efforts. The study provides anecdotal evidence of trap shyness as badgers in the culled area appeared more trap shy, possibly because they were more likely to avoid areas where traps were set and less likely to be caught from active setts than badgers in the unculled area. Other findings indicate a disrupted social organisation in badgers exposed to repeated culling. These were evidenced by changes to the size of home ranges and changes to population fecundity so that there was an increase in the number of cubs in the culled areas. In terms of disease spread within the two populations (culled and unculled), live-sampling indicated temporal and spatial differences in the prevalence of animals excreting M. bovis and also ELISA* positive cases. In particular ELISA positives in the culled area dropped considerably from 39% to 5% in 2005 and then increased to 26% the year after. This pattern was repeated in the prevalence of culture positive cases determined from post mortem examination and tissue culture of badgers culled in 2004 and 2005.
*enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
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January 28, 2008