Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500
- 518)
MONDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2007
DR GARETH
ENTICOTT, DR
CHRIS CHEESEMAN
AND DR
ROBBIE MCDONALD
Q500 Chairman: Do not have any doubts
at this stage. As a communication, a reasoning, a discussion exercise
what are the threads of an argument that you might have to put
together because it does seem to me that that is a little bit
of a juxtaposition between the very measured and reasoned analysis
which Dr Cheeseman has just put forward (and we will go through
the rest of the points in a minute) and the point you are making
about the background into which this kind of analysis has to be
dropped.
Dr Enticott: This is a concern
of mine in the sense that one of the implications from my research
is farmers are fatalistic and are going to do what they want to
do whatever; how do you deal with that? I do not know. The other
issue is that there are groups of farmers out there and I think
you probably spoke to them when you went down to Devon who have
said publicly that we are ready to do this, we all agree we need
to do it. They are saying that at the moment. I think if that
started to happen there would probably be some—many, maybe—who
would start to crack and would not want healthy badgers taken
out in such an extensive culling. I think the coordination of
farmers in that respect would be quite interesting to look at
but I do not think would result in what Chris is saying needs
to be done.
Q501 Chairman: You have given me
a commentary but you have not actually given me a solution. I
am going to park you there for a moment and go back to Dr Cheeseman.
Dr Cheeseman: Can I offer a solution?
Before the implementation of the culling trial the Independent
Scientific Group members went along and we had meetings with the
farmers in all the culling areas and I can remember being given
a very hard time by some of the farmers that we should not be
messing around with a trial, we should be getting on with just
killing them. However, they had taken the trouble to turn up,
they seemed to want to understand why we were there and I, for
one, would be prepared to go back and say to them, "Look,
we have got the results of this trial. It illustrates to us that
if you start messing around with the badger population in a piecemeal,
uncoordinated way you will make matters worse for yourselves".
We can show them in a fairly straightforward way the data and
I think we would win the argument. Whether we would win in terms
of action on the ground I do not know because there is a lot of
frustration out there; it is a desperately serious disease, but
that is the way I would approach it.
Dr McDonald: I think Mr Drew has
visited the study site where we are evaluating vaccination work.
Chairman, you used the phrase that "a vaccine was light years
away". One would certainly hope that in communicating the
development of that particular tool for tackling the disease that
it was somewhat closer than that. I believe you will be visiting
VLA to hear about that first hand.
Q502 Chairman: Yes, tomorrow.
Dr McDonald: It is certainly rather
closer than that and that is part of the package that we could
offer to farmers.
Q503 Mr Williams: Can I suggest to
Dr Cheeseman that farmers, although they do not understand or
do not naturally associate with biosecurity, are actually beginning
to understand perturbation. It is not that they do not understand
it, but they would say that the problem with a cull was that it
was not carried out in a comprehensive and radical manner and
that for the reasons that Dr King has put forward they understand
perturbation as a problem but actually a solution has been outlined
to them and they just wish to be associated with that and would
actually probably then engage more comprehensively with the biosecurity
issues.
Dr Cheeseman: There are two things
to say to that. I have been encouraged by the depth of understanding
of farmers on this perturbation issue and I would say that when
I developed the idea of perturbation and how it would actually
exacerbate the spread it was farmers themselves that were suggesting
it. In the early days of some of the badger removal operations—as
they were then called—a rash of outbreaks would occur on
the periphery and the farmers were saying, "We don't want
this any more; it is obviously making things worse". That
was what led me to develop this idea even more strongly because
they were bringing the ideas back to us. In terms of your suggestion
that they were saying that we were not doing it thoroughly enough,
the problem that the trial has shown is that even at the level
of culling that you can achieve by our best efforts in the trial,
although you get the benefit in the core area there are winners
and losers. The winners are in the core area; the losers are the
ones on the outside. I think farmers are beginning to understand
that and I do not think a lot of farmers would comply with a culling
programme—some of them have told me they will not—because
of the elevated risks that they would be suffering. If I were
a farmer on the edge of a culled area I would want to know who
was going to compensate me when I get a breakdown.
Q504 Mr Williams: But perturbation
is not a reason not to carry out a cull; perturbation is a problem
to be overcome and you look at it in a logical and reasonable
and scientific way and say that the way to minimise perturbation
has been outlined by Dr King. I think that is the way the feeling
and understanding is moving.
Dr Cheeseman: Dr King has suggested
that perturbation can be overcome but I would not agree. If I
were to tot up the number of hours or days that the Independent
Scientific Group and people like me have spent deliberating on
just how it could be overcome, it cannot be overcome because of
the lack of hard boundaries. You cannot stop badgers moving around
the countryside. Culling actually elevates the prevalence of disease
and we also know that infected badgers move further than their
healthy counterparts. All of these things stack up so I would
turn the argument back on you and say that if you are saying that
it can be done in a way that perturbation can be eliminated I
do not know of a way and I have spent a long time with the ISG
trying to get to the bottom of this. This is why the ISG's report
was so emphatic, that having considered all these practical problems
that need to be overcome they cannot be overcome at this point
in time. You have also got to bear in mind the badger contribution
to this problem. The best estimate in the hottest of the hotspots
is 40%; with the average likely to be less than that.
Q505 Chairman: 40% of what?
Dr Cheeseman: 40% of cattle breakdowns
are caused by badgers in the worst of the hotspots; this is Sir
David Cox's modelling work. If you take a more realistic average—30%
or less—that is the best you can hope to achieve if you
eliminate badgers altogether. You are still left with the major
component of the problem which is the cattle side of it. That
is another consideration for your Committee. Maybe we are spending
too much time deliberating on what to do about badgers when we
should be thinking more about what to do about cattle. Sorry,
that is a bit of an aside but I do think it is relevant. Shall
I continue with my list?
Chairman: I think Dr Strang wanted to
ask a question before you carry on.
Q506 Dr Strang: It is interesting
that you should point out that you and farmers all these years
ago identified perturbation and the subsequent scientific research
has been able to quantify this and give some further justification
for it. As I understand it are you saying that nobody disputes
that perturbation happens. Is that right?
Dr Cheeseman: It seems to me that
Sir David King was actually drawing into question that finding
because he said that some of the findings were "unfounded"
and this is the edge effect with reference to cattle. However,
the evidence relating to the fact that cattle TB is elevated,
all of the parameters that you measure with respect to badgers
point to the fact that they move around more, the prevalence is
elevated, TB badgers move even more than healthy ones and if you
imagine all this disturbance that is taking place on the edges
it is easy to see why it can actually exacerbate the spread of
disease. I do not think Sir David King has sufficiently taken
that on board.
Q507 Dr Strang: As I understand it
they are saying that in Ireland—I do not know whether perturbation
exists in Ireland—it is not practical.
Dr Cheeseman: The first thing
I would say is that the Irish trials had more hard boundaries
round their culling areas, that is the sea. Secondly, I do not
think they set up their trial in a way that you could measure
that negative edge effect. As far as I am aware there is no data
available on perturbation from the Irish trials.
Q508 Chairman: Would you quickly
run through the rest of your list?
Dr Cheeseman: Yes, indeed. I touched
on landowner compliance and I would suggest that it is pretty
certain that the National Trust, the Wildlife Trust and the Woodland
Trust for example would not agree with any culling in the light
of the scientific evidence and probably, as has already been said,
nor would many enlightened farmers because they would not want
to suffer the increased risks. You also have a huge difficulty
in identifying all the landowners. I think in the trial 13% of
the land was never attributed to any landowner.
Q509 Mr Gray: What evidence do you
have that, for example, the National Trust would not allow this?
Dr Cheeseman: I am not going to
mention any names but we have had contact with the people that
evaluate scientific findings for the National Trust and they are
completely on board with the ISG's report and they do not believe
that there is any evidence to support it.
Q510 Mr Gray: I think we need to
be clear about this. I do not think you can really quote people
like the National Trust unless you have publicly available evidence
that that is the case.
Dr Cheeseman: I would be prepared
to bet my house on the fact that they will not.
Q511 Mr Drew: I asked the Woodland
Trust on Friday and they were adamant they would never allow a
cull.
Dr Cheeseman: To continue, there
is the difficulty of identifying all the landowners. The next
problem you have is direct action, that is direct action against
trapping operations, as we experienced in the trial. If traps
are employed they are easy to target and I suggest that the culling
policy would be much more likely to receive opposition than the
experimental trial. I do not have any evidence to support that
but I think that is likely to be the case, especially as the scientific
evidence does not support it. There is the question of who should
do the culling. The idea of trained operatives—which was
mentioned in the King report—would be sensible but the Wildlife
Unit has been disbanded by Defra so there is not a body of trained
operatives available at the moment. If it were to be farmers then
they would need to be licensed and I think there is also likely
to be a legal challenge on the issue of licences because the evidence
shows that culling can actually make it worse. I suspect that
that will not be an easy matter. There is the question of methods
of culling. If traps are to be employed there would need to be
a very large number. There are welfare issues associated with
any of the methods of culling and I have been involved in all
of them. Incidentally the trapping regime that is in place at
the moment is one that was devised and developed by my research
team. The traps themselves are designed by us but they are inefficient,
as you know. The much more efficient method is snaring but that
has huge welfare implications and ministers took the decision
not to use snares as was originally recommended by Krebs. As to
poisoning I think the risks of non-target involvement are too
great to even entertain that idea. Shooting, again that has huge
welfare and safety implications. There are other welfare issues
such as whether there should be a closed season.
Q512 Mr Drew: You did not mention
gassing.
Dr Cheeseman: I did not mention
gassing but at the moment there is no obvious candidate for gassing.
Hydrogen cyanide was suspended because it was found to be inhumane
in action. There are certain gasses that could be used like carbon
monoxide or carbon dioxide but they would need to be properly
evaluated. The problem with gassing is that, as we discovered
with hydrogen cyanide, the complex architecture of a badger sett
is such that you cannot get a gas, even with power gassing, to
penetrate all parts of the sett. When gassing was employed, even
though hydrogen cyanide was highly effective, some setts had to
be re-gassed many, many times because the badgers were opening
them from the inside; they simply were not exposed to lethal concentrations
of gas.
Q513 Chairman: Dr Cheeseman, I am
going to be terribly rude because our next witness has been very
patiently sitting here and he thought he was going to be on at
about quarter past five. I have let the conversation run because
it has been genuinely helpful, but if you could in the next five
minutes draw your observations to a conclusion it would be very
helpful.
Dr Cheeseman: I can do it in two.
I think there would be a need to sample badgers to monitor TB
prevalence. There is the question of who does it and who pays.
How do you deal with the negative edge effects? As I have already
mentioned, some farmers will suffer an increased risk. Should
they be compensated? If so, how wide should the zone be and how
long should it be in place and who pays? There are ecological
consequences of removing badgers in the ecosystem and Defra funded
a very important piece of work a few years ago in association
with the trial where we found that if you remove the badgers you
get more foxes and possibly as a result of there being more foxes
you get fewer hares. Those are two examples. Hares are a Biodiversity
Action Plan species in the European Union where there is some
conservation concern. We need to bear in mind that badgers are
a key species in the ecosystem and if you remove them there will
be impacts around the system. Finally on my list—although,
as I say, it is not exhaustive—are the implications under
the Bern Convention. We have already been taken to task once at
the beginning of the culling trial and as the person who had to
go and argue our case in Strasbourg I can tell you that if we
go ahead with a large scale culling trial I think we are likely
to be brought back before the Bern Committee to answer for the
rationale behind that.
Q514 Chairman: I want to ask each
one of you a very short question and yes or no will be a sufficient
answer. If ministers were minded to announce that they were going
to sanction some form of culling is it important that when they
made such an announcement it contained all the elements of the
policy, in other words not just the "In principle we think
culling could help" but it should also describe how they
were going to do it, the modalities of it, the methodology, locations,
in other words a complete package. What do you think, Dr McDonald?
Dr McDonald: In terms of a policy
I think you will understand if I do not go into the details.
Q515 Chairman: I am not asking you
to go into any details, I am just asking if you think it important
that if they were to make an announcement—hypothetically
speaking—that they were in favour of a resumption in culling,
that you could not announce that as a point of principle without
at the same time announcing the detail of how you were going to
do it, where you were going to do it, how it was going to be funded.
In other words, the complete package.
Dr McDonald: I think the science
that would underpin that case would be vital to the programme's
success.
Q516 Chairman: Dr Cheeseman?
Dr Cheeseman: I would say yes
for the same reason; it needs justifying action.
Q517 Chairman: Dr Enticott, what
do you think?
Dr Enticott: I think farmers would
like to see an announcement.
Q518 Chairman: One way or the other.
Dr Enticott: To a certain extent
yes. I think they are fed up with waiting to be honest. That has
certainly been made strongly towards me when I was doing my research.
They feel like they have been left alone and whatever way it goes
they would like to have heard that a long time ago.
Chairman: I am now going to invite Professor
McInerney to join us; my apologies that you have had to wait a
little longer than we had bargained. May I thank all three of
you for your contribution both in written form and your remarks,
and also Dr McDonald for the photographs which are very useful
indeed. If you are staying—you do not have to stay—and
there is anything that comes up in the next bit that you want
to comment on do please let us know.
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