§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what evidence he has of the connection between badgers and the cattle disease bovine tuberculosis.
§ Mrs. FennerThe evidence has been published in Lord Zuckerman's report "Badgers, Cattle and Tuberculosis," in the Ministry's reports on bovine tuberculosis in badgers and in appropriate scientific and professional journals.
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§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many badgers have been slaughtered in each of the past five years as part of the programme to eliminate bovine tuberculosis; and how many of the badgers were found to be unaffected.
§ Mrs. FennerFigures are not available in the form requested. No realistic estimates can be made of the number of badgers slaughtered when gassing was the main method of badger control as the setts were sealed after gassing. However, the results of the laboratory examination of badgers in connection with official investigations of the agricultural departments are published in the Ministry's reports on bovine tuberculosis in badgers. These figures include not only those badgers taken by officials but badgers found dead within the investigation areas. Copies of the reports are available in the House of Commons Library. The report containing figures for 1983 will be published later in August.
§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has of outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis in areas where the badger population has previously been exterminated or is non-existent.
§ Mrs. FennerOutbreaks of bovine tuberculosis in cattle are identified either through routine tuberculin testing or inspection of carcase meat in the slaughterhouse. In every case a thorough investigation of the source of infection is conducted. It is only in cases where that investigation reveals that there has been a clear threat to cattle from tuberculosis infection in badgers that a badger removal operation is undertaken. There is no question of exterminating badgers in any area. Population surveys conducted by conservation societies indicate that there are few sizeable areas where badgers are non-existent.
It is the case that investigations of new confirmed tuberculosis outbreaks in cattle in Great Britain in the period 1979–83 have identified sources of infection, other than infected badgers, in only some 16 per cent of cases. The source of infection remains undiscovered in a further 27 per cent. of the cases.
§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the total cost of his Department's badger extermination programme in each year since 1975.
§ Mrs. FennerThere is no policy to exterminate badgers. The cost of badger control operations in the south-west of England, including salaries and equipment, from August 1975 to 26 June 1982, the date that the use of gassing as the main method of badger control was suspended, was estimated at an average of about £140,000 per annum.