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Friday, 20 December 2024
A THREE POINT BULLETIN FROM WILD JUSTICE
9 Lawson St
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Wellingborough Northants NN9 6NG
UNITED KINGDOM
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FROM PROTECT THE WILD - IS ANY LEGAL ENFORCEMENT ON HUNTS WORTH THE EFFORT?
Are Community Protection Warnings worth the paper they're written on?As more hunts are given CPWs we ask if they make any difference to their terrible behaviour
West Mercia Police has issued four hunts with Community Protection Warnings (CPWs). Protect the Wild takes a look at what this means, and whether it will protect wildlife where the Hunting Act has failed.On 9 December, Action Against Foxhunting (AAF) announced that the North Shropshire Hunt, South Shropshire Hunt, Wynnstay Hunt and the United Pack had all been issued with CPWs in October. A CPW is the first of three stages that the police can take in their process of issuing a Community Protection Notice (CPN). The first stage is to issue a formal warning to an individual or group, outlining what action they need to take or stop so that they aren’t sanctioned with a CPN. The second stage is to issue a CPN - which has replaced the more famous Antisocial Behaviour Order, or ASBO - if the conditions of the warning are broken. The final stage is for the police to take action if the CPN isn’t complied with. AAF outlined the conditions of the CPWs, saying:
The group continued:
'A joint venture between locals and the police'Protect the Wild's readers will know all too well that the Hunting Act's loopholes ensure that hunters can get around the law. Meanwhile, the Road Traffic Act even has an exemption for the use of dogs on roads by hunts. So, are Community Protection Warnings and Notices useful for enforcing punishment where existing legislation is failing? We spoke to Cheshire (Borderland) Monitors' Lesley Martin to ask her opinion. She keeps a close eye on the notorious Wynnstay, a violent and aggressive hunt which has been issued with a CPW by West Mercia Police. Martin said that the warning has made very little difference so far, and goes on to highlight how locals can play a part to ensure that further action can be taken by the police. She said:
Martin explained that to enforce the CPW and issue a subsequent CPN, it is local people who need to submit complaints to police forces. Reports and footage from Cheshire Monitors are not useful because for complaints to count, they need to come from community members. She explained that last time she monitored the Wynnstay, locals told the monitors about four incidents, but that none had been reported to the police. Martin continued:
Other hunts have been issued with CPWs, with varying effect. Some weeks ago, North Dorset Sabs reported that the notorious Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt had received a CPW. But Dorset Hunt Monitors argue that this is not enough. The monitors stated:
Maybe the key is for locals to take Cheshire (Borderland) Monitors' Lesley Martin's advice and report every crime, getting those incident numbers.
The benefits of CPNsSo, even if a community does successfully secure a CPN, is this even useful in preventing hunters from flouting the law? We asked Hull Wildlife Protectors their opinion. Volunteer Charlotte Smith thinks the issuance of CPNs is extremely beneficial. She explained to us:
Of course, a CPN is only as effective as the police force imposing it. An example of terrible policing is that of Warwickshire Police, which has been subject to intense scrutiny by the public for its blatant bias towards the Warwickshire Hunt. The force initially imposed a CPN on the hunt for causing road chaos, but then quickly dropped it and replaced it with a secret ‘protocol’ which it had negotiated with the hunt itself. The public lost trust in Warwickshire Police over the CPN scandal. Change the law!It is obvious that if hunting legislation was effective, CPWs and CPNs would not be needed to police hunts. In its manifesto, Labour promised that it would strengthen the Hunting Act, getting rid of loopholes that are currently being exploited. The widespread issuance of CPWs and CPNs on hunts should be yet another reminder to politicians that hunts are out of control and need to be stopped once and for all.
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Tuesday, 17 December 2024
FROM PROTECT THE WILD == EVIDENCE FLAWED IN BADGER CULL DECISIONS?
Imagine this: for decades, an entire government policy causing mass death is founded on evidence that many scientists now say is deeply flawed. Like the infamous Post Office scandal, where innocent workers were blamed for crimes they didn’t commit, the badger cull hinges on a narrative that points the finger at badgers for spreading bovine tuberculosis (bTB) to cattle. The result? Over 200,000 badgers, a protected species, slaughtered since 2013 in what some researchers are now calling an unnecessary and misguided campaign. The story began in 1971 when a Gloucestershire farmer handed a single badger infected with bTB to local officials. Fast forward 50 years, and the scene is horrifying: tens of thousands of badgers killed annually, their bodies stacked in skips and bins, with no testing to confirm whether they carried the disease. How did England get from one infected badger to a full-scale assault on this species? The answer lies in the Randomised Badger Cull Trial (RBCT)—a pivotal field experiment carried out between 1998 and 2007. Analysis of the RBCT findings claimed that killing badgers reduces bTB in cattle in cull areas, though it increases infections in surrounding areas due to badger dispersal. These conclusions have heavily shaped government policy, justifying widespread badger culling since 2013. But recent reanalyses of the RBCT data have exposed critical flaws, leading researchers to question its conclusions and the entire basis for badger culling. The RBCT: Shaping a Controversial PolicyThe RBCT was designed to test the relationship between badgers and bTB. It divided 10 trial areas into three groups, commonly called "triplets." In one area, badgers were proactively killed in large numbers. In another, badgers were killed reactively—only when bTB outbreaks occurred in local cattle herds. The final area served as a control, where badgers were surveyed but left undisturbed. The reactive killing was quickly abandoned after reports suggested it increased bTB outbreaks in cows compared to control areas. This left only the proactive culling and control groups in the experiment. In 2006, researchers published their analysis of the RBCT findings, concluding that proactive culling reduced bTB in cattle within cull areas but increased it in surrounding regions due to disrupted badger populations. This analysis formed the backbone of the government’s bTB strategy, leading to a large-scale culling program that has killed hundreds of thousands of badgers to date. Revisiting the RBCT: Flaws in the FoundationRecent reanalyses of the RBCT data, including a 2024 study published by Professor Paul Torgerson (British veterinary academic) and colleagues, have cast doubt on its conclusions. Tom Langton was a co-author of the 2024 study. He is a well-known ecologist and expert on badger conservation who has long argued that the RBCT’s methodology and conclusions are deeply flawed. Langton has pointed to systemic issues in the design of the trial and the government’s interpretation of its results, which he claims have driven an unnecessary and ecologically damaging culling program. Torgerson’s team attempted to replicate the RBCT’s findings using the same data and methods but failed. Reproducibility is a cornerstone of credible scientific research: if other researchers cannot replicate the findings using the same data and techniques, it calls the original conclusions into question. This inability to reproduce the RBCT’s results led Torgerson’s team to dig deeper into the analysis, revealing three critical flaws:
Failure to Account for Key Variables:According to Torgerson’s team, the RBCT analysis did not properly account for "exposure." This is the number of herds in the experiment (ie sample size) and the observation period. That is, the researchers did not use a denominator correctly. Analysis correcting for sample size and time at risk, i.e. using incidence rates, showed no significant trend that would link badgers to bTB rates in cows. Overfitting Data:Overfitting occurs when a statistical model tries to account for too many factors, resulting in skewed conclusions. Torgerson’s team found that the RBCT model relied on overfitted data, making its results less reliable. Missing Key Data:The RBCT failed to include all relevant data about bTB in cattle herds, further weakening its analysis. In particular, it only used data on the ‘confirmed’ presence of bTB – known as breakdowns – in cow herds, excluding the ‘unconfirmed’ ones. Despite what these labels suggest, unconfirmed breakdowns are instances where cows in herds test positive for bTB in robust tests, so they most certainly would have had bTB. They just lack other particular signs of bTB, which is why the original researchers excluded them. This too impacted the reliability of the analysis. The Implications of Flawed ScienceThe flaws in the RBCT are more than an academic issue—they have real-world consequences. Based on these flawed findings, badgers have been vilified and slaughtered at unprecedented rates, with little to no testing to confirm whether they carry bTB. Meanwhile, research increasingly points to cattle-focused measures, such as stricter testing and biosecurity, as the most effective way to control bTB. This controversy over the RBCT mirrors the scientific reproducibility crisis, where studies fail to yield the same results when reanalysed. If the RBCT’s conclusions cannot hold up to scrutiny, the entire justification for badger culling crumbles. Like the Post Office scandal, it raises an uncomfortable question: how many lives have been lost based on flawed evidence? The Path Forward / petition to end the cullResearchers and wildlife advocates argue that it is time to abandon the cull and focus on evidence-based measures to tackle bTB. The stakes are high—not only for badgers but also for maintaining public trust in science and policy. The badger cull stands as a stark reminder of the harm that can result when science is misused or misunderstood.
And it is for all the reasons outlined in this article that we recently submitted a new Govt petition calling for an immediate end to the badger cull and the adoption of other approaches to bovine TB control. An incredible 25,000+ of you have already signed it in just under 3 weeks. If you're reading this and you're as shocked and disgusted as we are about the continued slaughter of a protected species then please add your name here.
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