Public attitudes towards badger culling to control bovine tuberculosis in cattle

White, Piran C. L.; Whiting, SJ

doi:10.1136/vr.147.7.179

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…1999) representative. The extent to which the respondents are representative should be quantified, for example by resurveying the non‐respondents (Heydon & Reynolds 2000) or by statistical comparison of the respondents with the intended sample population (White & Whiting 2000; as undertaken here).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat associations of European hares Lepus europaeus in England and Wales: implications for farmland management

Vaughan

Lucas²,

Harris

et al. 2003

Journal of Applied Ecology

114

111

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Summary Numbers of European haresLepus europaeus have declined throughout Europe as a result of agricultural intensification. Ecological research to inform agricultural management policy is needed. We aimed to identify agricultural land management practices that may benefit this species, which is of conservation concern and of value as a game animal. 2. A postal survey of farmers was used to investigate relationships between the abundance of hares on farmland and current land management, the abundance of a possible competitor (rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus ) and the abundance of two predators (buzzard Buteo buteo and fox Vulpes vulpes ). 3. Questionnaires were sent to 3000 farms in England and Wales selected from the annual agricultural census database held by the UK government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the National Assembly for Wales. Onethousand and fifty farmers (35%) responded. Non-respondents were statistically similar to respondents, so the questionnaire data were considered representative of the opinions of farmers in England and Wales. 4. Hares were relatively common on arable farms, especially on those with wheat Triticum aestivum , beet Beta vulgaris or fallow land. They were less common on pastural farms, where the likelihood of seeing hares was increased if improved grass, woodland or, in some cases, arable land was present. The association of relatively frequent sightings of hares with arable land was consistent at four spatial scales (farm, parish group, county and region). 5. Hares were seen rarely where foxes were seen frequently. Hares were generally only hunted on farms where they were common. Hence, records of numbers of hares shot may be used as indices of hare abundance but only in areas where hares are common. 6. Forty-two per cent of farmers believed that hares were declining. Hare numbers were most likely to be increasing on arable farms. 7. Synthesis and applications. Changes in land management that provide year-round cover and forage may make farms more attractive to hares. To benefit hares, pastural farms should have some woodland, improved grass and arable crops; arable farms should have wheat, beet and fallow land.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat associations of European hares Lepus europaeus in England and Wales: implications for farmland management

Vaughan

Lucas²,

Harris

et al. 2003

Journal of Applied Ecology

114

111

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“…These trade‐offs are then used to derive preferences or valuations for the environmental variables indirectly. This technique has been used recently to inform decision‐making for wildlife management policy in Britain (Cox, 1999; Cox et al , 1999; White & Whiting 2000), although its wider applicability for valuation is dependent on the existence of meaningful environment–monetary trade‐offs for the construction of the alternative policy scenarios.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of willingness‐to‐pay approaches in mammal conservation

2001

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With limited monetary resources available for nature conservation, policy‐makers need to be able to prioritize conservation objectives. This has traditionally been done using qualitative ecological criteria. However, since declines in species and habitats are largely the result of socio‐economic and political forces, human preferences and values should also be taken into account. An environmental economics technique, contingent valuation, provides one way of doing this by quantifying public willingness‐to‐pay towards specific conservation objectives. In this paper, the use of this approach for quantifying public preferences towards the UK Biodiversity Action Plans for four different British mammal species is considered. The species included are the Red Squirrel Sciurus vulgaris, the Brown Hare Lepus europaeus, the Otter Lutra lutra and the Water Vole Arvicola terrestris. Willingness‐to‐pay for conservation was increased by the inclusion of the Otter among the species, membership of an environmental organization and awareness of the general and species‐specific threats facing British mammals. It was reduced by the presence of the Brown Hare among the species being considered. These findings for British mammals are compared with other willingness‐to‐pay studies for mammal conservation worldwide. Willingness‐to‐pay tends to be greater for marine mammals than terrestrial ones, and recreational users of species (tourists or hunters) are generally more willing than residents to pay towards species conservation. The choice of technique for eliciting willingness‐to‐pay from respondents is also shown to be highly significant. Willingness‐to‐pay values for British mammals derived from contingent valuation are sensitive to the species included rather than merely symbolic. This indicates that, with care, such measures can be used as a reliable means of quantifying public preferences for conservation, and therefore contributing to the decision‐making process. However, irrespective of the internal consistency of contingent valuation, the validity of the approach, especially for use in nature conservation, is disputed. Willingness‐to‐pay is likely to reflect many interrelated factors such as ethical and moral values, knowledge and tradition, and monetary values may not be an adequate representation of these broader considerations. Willingness‐to‐pay approaches should therefore be used in addition to, rather than in place of, expert judgements and more deliberative approaches towards policy decision‐making for conservation.

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“…Studies have shown that M. bovis infections in badgers and cattle are associated in space (Woodroffe et al, 2005c;Jenkins et al, 2007), and experimental reduction of badger density by culling over large ($100 km 2 ) tracts of land has been found to lower the incidence of cattle TB inside culled areas (Griffin et al, 2005;Donnelly et al, 2006). However, such widespread badger culling is labor-intensive, costly, and unpopular with the general public (Dunnet et al, 1986;White and Whiting, 2000;Woodroffe et al, 2008). For these reasons, past TB control policies restricted badger culling to localized areas centered on farms that had recently experienced TB incidents in cattle (termed ''herd breakdowns'').…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bovine Tuberculosis in Cattle and Badgers in Localized Culling Areas

Woodroffe¹,

Donnelly

Cox³

et al. 2009

Journal of Wildlife Diseases

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ABSTRACT:Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is a zoonotic disease that can have serious consequences for cattle farming and, potentially, for public health. In Britain, failure to control bovine TB has been linked to persistent infection of European badger (Meles meles) populations. However, culling of badgers in the vicinity of recent TB outbreaks in cattle has failed to reduce the overall incidence of cattle TB. Using data from a large-scale study conducted in 1998-2005, we show that badgers collected on such localized culls had elevated prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bovine TB, suggesting that infections in cattle and badgers were indeed associated. Moreover, there was a high degree of similarity in the M. bovis strain types isolated from cattle and associated badgers. This similarity between strain types appeared to be unaffected by time lags between the detection of infection in cattle and culling of badgers, or by the presence of purchased cattle that might have acquired infection elsewhere. However, localized culling appeared to prompt an increase in the prevalence of M. bovis infection in badgers, probably by disrupting ranging and territorial behavior and hence increasing intraspecific transmission rates. This elevated prevalence among badgers could offset the benefits, for cattle, of reduced badger densities and may help to explain the failure of localized culling to reduce cattle TB incidence.

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Public attitudes towards badger culling to control bovine tuberculosis in cattle

Cited by 21 publications

References 3 publications

Habitat associations of European hares Lepus europaeus in England and Wales: implications for farmland management

Habitat associations of European hares Lepus europaeus in England and Wales: implications for farmland management

The use of willingness‐to‐pay approaches in mammal conservation

Bovine Tuberculosis in Cattle and Badgers in Localized Culling Areas

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