Policy paper

Annex B: summary of 2021 badger control compliance monitoring

Published 30 March 2022

Applies to England

Background

Natural England is the competent authority regarding the granting of badger control licences for the purpose of preventing the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. It is responsible for conducting visits of cage-trapping and controlled shooting contractors to monitor compliance with licence conditions and the published Best Practice Guides. The methodology and rationale used for compliance monitoring were the same as those published in December 2017^{[footnote 1]}.

Following the success of the monitoring approach adopted for controlled shooting contractors since 2017, Natural England focused its resources to monitor:

• approximately 10% of controlled shooting contractors operating in Areas 55 to 61 and 10% of 2021-trained contractors operating in Year 2+ areas (that is, Areas 22 to 54).
• existing contractors by exception in Areas 22 to 54. Monitoring of cage-trapping contractors is normally conducted at a lower level to reflect the fact that this is a long-established method of catching badgers, the humaneness of which has been previously investigated^{[footnote 2]}. However in 2021, higher than normal monitoring levels were achieved due to Year 1 companies occupying smaller areas than in previous years, which required the deployment of fewer contractors.

Field monitoring

Natural England deployed 16 Monitors to conduct compliance monitoring visits of contractors licensed to carry out controlled shooting of free-ranging badgers and cage-trapping and dispatch of badgers. All monitoring visits were conducted in accordance with a Covid-19 Risk Assessment based on standard Government guidelines for essential fieldwork. Prior to organising visits, contractors were asked to confirm that they hadn’t displayed any symptoms of Covid-19 in the last 10 days. During the visits, strict safeguard measures were observed, together with an internal Track and Trace Register, to protect both staff and contractors. The number of compliance monitoring visits conducted in each control area is presented in Table 1. Percentage figures are based on the number of compliance visits conducted as a proportion of the total contractors active for that method.

Table 1: Number of compliance monitoring visits conducted by Natural England Monitors during 2021 Badger Control Operations, within Areas 55-61.

Area	Controlled shooting	Cage-trapping
Area 55 – Shropshire	6 (23.1%)	7 (35.0%)
Area 56 – Hampshire	16 (26.2%)	20 (48.8%)
Area 57 - Berkshire	5 (26.3%)	8 (50.0%)
Area 58 - Staffordshire	12 (24.0%)	13 (46.4%)
Area 59 - Worcestershire	6 (21.4%)	5 (71.4%)
Area 60 - Shropshire	22 (27.2%)	29 (37.7%)
Area 61 Oxfordshire	10 (25.6%)	16 (47.1%)

In addition, 20 compliance monitoring visits were conducted on 2021-trained active controlled shooting contractors within Year 2+ Areas (Areas 22-54). This represented 38% of the total number of active controlled shooting contractors trained in 2021.

For operational and training purposes, there were 15 ‘by exception’ monitoring visits conducted of existing contractors in Year 2+ Areas.

Contractor compliance and competency

The levels of compliance and competency of controlled shooting and cage-trapping contractors observed in the field by Monitors are presented in Table 2. Percentage figures are based on the number of criteria assigned to each level as a proportion of the total criteria assessed during compliance monitoring visits.

• Level 1 – Demonstrates the ability to execute all indicated tasks without guidance.
• Level 2 – Acceptably demonstrates the ability to execute most of the required tasks with little or no guidance. While sufficiently competent, they could benefit from continued intermittent oversight.
• Level 3 – Does not acceptably demonstrate the ability to execute the necessary tasks. Requires a further compliance monitoring visit or would benefit from additional training or supervised practice.

Table 2: Compliance with licence conditions and the Best Practice Guides by contractors monitored by Natural England during 2021 Badger Control Operations.

Level	Controlled shooting criteria	Cage-trapping criteria
Level 1	96.7%	86.9%
Level 2	3.3%	13.1%
Level 3	0%	0%

Controlled shooting observations

Monitors were equipped with suitable viewing equipment to observe shooting events^{[footnote 3]}; remaining close enough to the contractor team to enable a clear view of the target species prior to and post shot. Observations that were noted in the field included numbers of badgers shot at and retrieved (including the number of shots taken for each badger), numbers of badgers shot at but missed and numbers of badgers shot at but wounded and lost.

Where Monitors observed a ‘shot at and retrieved’ shooting event, they noted badger reaction to the shot and assigned this to one of five distinct categories:

• ‘Dropped to the shot’;
• ‘Reacted to the shot, moved a short distance and dropped’;
• ‘Reacted to the shot, follow-up shot(s) taken and dropped’; or
• ‘Reacted to the shot, moved a short distance, follow-up shot(s) taken and dropped’.
• ‘Presumed wounded and lost but carcase found in the next morning’

To make sure that Monitors could differentiate between a ‘miss’ and ‘a wounded and lost’ shot at but not retrieved shooting event, the following information was recorded on the circumstances of the shot:

• Distance of the badger when the shot was taken? This will have an influence on where the bullet actually strikes relative to the Point of Aim (POA). For example, if the badger is within 20 metres of the contractor, the bullet strike will be slightly low of the POA on a rifle that is zeroed at 70 metres.
• Any audible bullet strike? If a bullet is on target, there will be an audible ‘thud’ or ‘plop’. A bullet that is off target will have little (if any) audible strike when entering an earth backstop.
• Any reaction to the shot? A badger that has been hit will exhibit some sort of reaction whether this is dropping to the ground, jumping forward or into the air, spinning round.
• Gait of badger when it left the site? A badger that has been hit will usually exhibit an abnormal gait when leaving the site.
• Any blood, hair or bone at the strike site? An absence of any of these signs suggests that the shot was a miss.
• Any blood along the exit trail of the badger? An absence of blood suggests a miss.
• Any badgers shot immediately prior to and/or post the shot at but not retrieved event? This will give an indication as to zero of the rifle i.e. its accuracy.

Monitors recorded data on 86 shooting events during 2021 Badger Control Operations. The outcome of each observed shooting event is presented in Table 3.

Table 3: Number and outcome of shooting events observed by Natural England Monitors during 2021 Badger Control Operations.

Observed shooting events	86
Badgers shot at and retrieved	83(96.5%)
Dropped to the shot	65
Reacted to the shot, moved a short distance and dropped	4
Reacted to the shot, follow-up shot(s) taken and dropped	9
Reacted to shot, moved short distance, follow-up shot(s) taken and dropped	5
Presumed wounded and lost but carcase found in the next morning	0
Badgers shot at but not retrieved	3 (3.5%)
Shot at but missed	3
Shot at but wounded and lost	0

In addition to the shooting events observed by Natural England, contractors self-reported any events where badgers were shot at but not retrieved. The outcome of these shooting events is presented in Table 4. Following the same methodology used since 2017, Natural England investigated each wounded & lost event to ascertain the circumstances surrounding these.

Table 4: Outcome of self-reported shooting events in Areas 22 to 61 during 2021 Badger Control Operations.

Total shooting events	28,802
Badgers shot at and retrieved	28,439 (98.7%)
Badgers shot at but not retrieved	363 (1.3%)
Shot at but missed	312
Shot at but wounded and lost	51

There were no third party reports of dead badgers having been found with suspected firearms injury.

Cage-trapping observations

Monitors conducted compliance monitoring visits on 101 cage-trapping contractors who exhibited a high level of compliance with licence conditions and the Best Practice Guide (see Table 2). A small number of anomalies with trapping technique (non-compliance related) were observed during monitoring but these were addressed through mentoring support from the relevant companies.

1. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/670226/badger-control-monitoring-summary-2017-annexb.pdf ↩

2. Woodroffe R. et al. (2005) Welfare of badgers (Meles meles) subjected to culling: patterns of trap-related injuries. Animal Welfare, 14, 11-17. ↩

3. A ‘shooting event’ refers to all shots taken in the attempted dispatch of one badger. Each event results in either a badger that is ‘shot at and retrieved’ or ‘shot at but not retrieved’. ↩