Policy paper

Summary of 2025 badger control operations

Published 30 July 2026

Applies to England

Natural England Chief Scientist’s advice on the outcome of badger control operations, 2025

Effectiveness of industry-led culling

In 2025, alongside the Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO), I have continued to provide oversight and advice on the effectiveness, safety and humaneness of the operations for existing intensive badger control (IC) areas and low risk area (LRA) control areas (Areas 62- 73). Our advice for areas which undertook licensed supplementary badger control (SBC) in 2025, will be released separately. The outcome of this year’s operations indicates that industry-led licensed badger control continues to deliver the level of effectiveness required by the policy to be confident of achieving disease control benefits:

• 9 of the 11 areas in their 4th year applied an appropriate level of targeted effort to maintain the population at a reduced level.
• Area 71- Warwickshire did not meet the recommended effort nor their minimum number, nevertheless they deployed sufficient coverage so were declared to have completed a successful cull.
• Area 72- Warwickshire, whilst deploying sufficient coverage, did not deploy sufficient effort or meet their minimum number and as such were deemed to have not completed a successful cull.
• As in previous years, minimum and maximum numbers were updated once badger control operations were underway.  This allowed initial estimates of badger abundance to be refined by actual circumstances observed in the field. These numbers have been outlined within Annex A1 – Updating minimum and maximum numbers during 2025 badger control operations.
• 11 of the 12 areas continued beyond 42 days to maximise disease control benefits where factors such as late maize harvest and poor weather conditions hampered coverage on some parcels of land.  In these continuation periods, the number of badgers to be removed was increased.
• Area 73- Cumbria (2nd year LRA) met both effort and coverage targets and as such completed a successful cull.

Safety of operations

Operations across all areas were carried out to agreed standards of public safety.  This reflects the continued importance of refresher training for contactors each year by companies and continued co-operation with the police. 

Humaneness of controlled shooting

It is difficult to make an inference on the likely suffering of the whole population of controlled shot badgers in 2025 using the monitoring data currently available. Only a relatively small number of controlled shooting events was observed by Natural England monitors (n=15), but the level of accuracy compares favourably with previous years. Contractors showed high levels of discipline and compliance with the best practice guides (see Annex B).

Prof. Sallie Bailey
Chief Scientist, Natural England

UK Chief Veterinary Officer’s advice and conclusions on disease control benefits

In 2025, I oversaw and advised on disease control for 11 intensive control areas and 1 low risk area (LRA) control area.

Intensive badger cull operations

Areas 62 to 72 were subject to an early termination review. Badger culling continued in Areas 62-72 in 2025 following annual authorisation by Natural England.

Natural England’s Chief Scientist and I concluded that Areas 62 to 71 conducted an effective intensive badger cull in 2025, despite Area 71 marginally missing their minimum number and effort targets. Area 72 was deemed not to have completed an effective cull in 2025 due to insufficient sustained and coordinated badger culling effort deployed across the area.

Areas 62 to 72 have now completed their licence and all intensive badger culling licences in the High Risk and Edge Areas have ended.

LRA cull operations

As with previous years, I was responsible for monitoring operations in the LRA of England. Badger disease control operations in the LRA are managed independently of intensive operations in the edge area and HRA and a review on the previous year’s operations is available.

Area 54 - Lincolnshire is within Hotspot 23. Culling operations ended in Area 54 in 2024. In 2025, Area 54 began badger vaccination.

Area 73 - Cumbria is within Hotspot 29 (HS29). HS29 was established in 2023 in response to an increase in Officially TB Free Status - Withdrawn (OTFW) incidents. Enhanced TB surveillance measures have been implemented in cattle across HS29. Area 73 began badger culling operations in 2024. Operations continued in 2025 and Area 73 met all targets. Therefore, Area 73 is considered to have carried out an effective second year cull.

The prevalence of mycobacterium bovis infection in sampled badgers removed from Area 73 during 2025 operations was low. Therefore, I advised that badger vaccination could be as effective as continued culling. The badger culling licence for Area 73 will not be renewed by Natural England and badger culling will not take place in Area 73 in 2026. Badger vaccination has been deployed in Area 73 for 2026.

Humaneness statement 

The likelihood of suffering in controlled shot badgers which were observed by Natural England in 2025 is broadly similar to that reported for killing of other terrestrial wild species. However, given the basis of the available data and reporting from operational partners, it is difficult to make an inference on the likely suffering of the whole population of controlled shot badgers in 2025.

Prof. Christine Middlemiss
Chief Veterinary Officer

Background

On 11 December 2025, Defra announced^{[footnote 1]} that as part of the government’s 25-year strategy to eradicate bovine tuberculosis and protect the livelihoods of dairy and beef farmers, Natural England had licensed and authorised badger disease control operations across 12 areas in Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Hampshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, and Warwickshire,

Badger control operations, lasting at least 6 weeks, took place in each area between 3 September and 27 October 2025. This document sets out the outcomes from those areas.

Effectiveness

Estimates of the badger population in each intensive control area were supplied by Defra for the purpose of giving advice to Natural England on setting the minimum and maximum number of badgers to be removed under the licences. The minimum and maximum numbers, methodologies and rationale used were published in October 2025^{[footnote 2]}.

As in previous years, Natural England monitored the progress in each control area closely. The levels of contractor shooting effort, number of cage-traps set and number of badgers removed were recorded on a daily basis in all accessible land parcels. This provided Natural England with regular information on the numbers of badgers removed, the amount of effort deployed by each control company and its spatial distribution. This enabled a detailed assessment of the progress that each control company was making towards achieving their minimum and maximum numbers (where appropriate) and allowed Natural England to assess whether resources were being effectively deployed across all accessible land.

Updating minimum and maximum numbers

As set out in Section D of Defra’s advice to Natural England, numbers were reviewed as operations progressed to assess whether the badger population in each Intensive control area was higher or lower than the initial estimate suggested. Based on an assessment of the data on Day 28 in 11 control areas^{[footnote 3]}, Defra advised Natural England to adjust the minimum numbers upwards in 7 of these areas and downwards in the remaining 4 to better reflect the evidence of badger abundance. Details of the calculations can be found in Annex A1.

Progress towards minimum and maximum numbers

In 2025, 9 control areas achieved their minimum number and did not exceed their maximum number. Two areas, Area 71- Warwickshire and Area 72- Warwickshire met their coverage target however they did not reach their minimum number and did not reach the recommended effort target. It was agreed that these 2 areas could continue beyond Day 42. These continuations were agreed to ensure coverage of parcels of land that were yet to be accessed, in order to maximise disease control benefits. Like other areas that continued beyond Day 42, these areas consequently received an additional increase of 1.5% per additional operational day and ceased below this uplifted number. See Table 1.

Table 1: Number of badgers removed by Areas 62 to 70 during 2025 badger control operations.

Area	Updated minimum number	Updated maximum number	Badgers removed	Badgers removed by controlled shooting	Badgers removed by cage-trapping
Area 62 - Buckinghamshire*	183	249	210	158	52
Area 63 - Cornwall	145	196	196	178	18
Area 64 - Cornwall*	103	139	137	126	11
Area 65 - Derbyshire*	320	434	396	386	10
Area 66 - Devon*	82	112	111	105	6
Area 67 - Hampshire*	116	157	131	115	16
Area 68 - Northamptonshire*	537	728	627	526	101
Area 69 - Oxfordshire*	164	223	178	164	14
Area 70 - Somerset*	62	85	76	63	13
Area 71 - Warwickshire*	289	392	267	243	24
Area 72 - Warwickshire*	420	570	393	387	6
Area 73 - Cumbria	N/A	N/A	175	93	82

* Minimum and maximum numbers for areas include an additional increase of 1.5% per operational day given continuation in those areas beyond 42 days, see Annex A1.

More data on these areas can be found in Annex A2.

Accuracy of controlled shooting

Shooting accuracy was used as a proxy measure for ‘humaneness’ and was assessed using observations from Natural England monitors of free-ranging badgers being shot at under controlled shooting conditions.

Summary of controlled shooting observations

The use of firearms carries an element of risk with regard to the wounding of individual animals. While the contractor has control over the condition of the firearm, ammunition used, zeroing of the rifle and shooting technique, once the trigger is released, external parameters outside of the contractor’s control come into play.  A missed shot can result for a number of reasons, with movement of the target species simultaneously with trigger release being the most common.

Monitors observed 15 free-ranging badgers being shot at using controlled shooting, of which none were categorised as shot at but not retrieved. 

The non-retrieval rate observed in 2025 of 0% (95% confidence interval 0.0%–15.2%^{[footnote 4]} was the lowest rate observed since licensing operations commenced in 2013.

More details on compliance monitoring conducted during badger control operations can be found in Annex B.

Safety of operations

Operations in all 12 control areas were carried out to a high standard of public safety. All existing badger control companies’ contractors continued to receive refresher training prior to the commencement of operations in 2025, on the requirements of the published best practice guides^{[footnote 5]} lessons learned and safety training.

In relation to the use of firearms in all 12 control areas, no significant incidents affecting public safety were reported. Contractors continued to show high levels of discipline and adherence to the best practice guides, see Annex B.

Conclusions

The results from 2025 indicate that 11 badger control companies have delivered the level of badger removal required to be confident of disease control benefits and that operations were carried out to a high standard of public safety.

Area 72- Warwickshire did not deploy sufficient levels of effort and did not meet their minimum number, however did cover sufficient land. The area was subsequently deemed ineffective.

The accuracy of controlled shooting compared favourable to previous years, although only a relatively small proportion of controlled shooting events were assessed by Natural England monitors.

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-authorisation-for-badger-control-in-2025 ↩

2. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-to-natural-england-on-setting-minimum-and-maximum-numbers-of-badgers-to-be-controlled-in-2025 ↩

3. The remaining area, Area 73 - Cumbria did not receive minimum and maximum numbers as these are of less utility in the Low Risk Area given the aim of preventing disease spreading within wildlife and aiding eradication of disease. ↩

4. Estimates of confidence intervals for proportions were produced using a “Modified Jeffries interval” (Brown and others, 2001). ↩

5. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/630e1f72e90e0729dcbd7ed1/Controlled_Shooting_of_Free-ranging_Badgers_BPG_-_August_2022.pdf

   https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1100995/Cage-trapping_and_Dispatch_of_Badgers_BPG_August_2022.pdf ↩