McCulloch, SP;
Reiss, MJ;
(2017)
Bovine Tuberculosis and Badger Control in Britain: Science, Policy and Politics.
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics
10.1007/s10806-017-9686-3.
(In press).
Preview |
Text
McCulloch & Reiss 2017 JAGE Bovine TB and badgers - Science, Policy and Politics.pdf - Published Version Download (449kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Bovine tuberculosis (bovine TB) is the most economically important animal health policy issue in Britain. The problem of what to do about badgers has plagued successive governments since a dead badger was discovered with bovine TB in 1971. Successive Labour governments (1997–2010) oversaw the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) from 1998 to 2006. Despite the RBCT recommendation against culling, the 2010–2015 Coalition government implemented pilot badger culls. This paper provides an account of the evolution of bovine TB and badger control policy, focusing on the 1997–2010 Labour, the 2010–2015 Coalition and the 2015-present Conservative governments. Interviews with bovine TB policy stakeholders supplement discussion of the development of bovine TB policy. The paper discusses the science and politics of bovine TB policy, in which there are different badger control policies in Westminster, Welsh and Scottish governments. Badger control is a highly polarised issue, and the Coalition and Conservative governments have been heavily criticised for a culling policy opposed by the independent scientific community. Recent governments have defended badger culling on the basis of veterinary advice and experience in countries such as New Zealand. The paper concludes with two key recommendations to inform controversial animal health and welfare policy issues such as bovine TB. First, mandatory Animal Welfare Impact Assessment provides objective data on the impacts of policy options on cows and badgers. Second, robust ethical analysis, conducted by independent experts using established moral frameworks, should be applied to animal health and welfare issues for the benefit of decision makers.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Bovine Tuberculosis and Badger Control in Britain: Science, Policy and Politics |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10806-017-9686-3 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-017-9686-3 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
| Keywords: | Animal health and welfare policy; Animal Welfare Impact Assessment (AWIA); Badger culling; Badger vaccination; Bovine tuberculosis; Ethical analysis |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1571906 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
