To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she has taken to comply with the recommendation in the Chief Veterinary Officer's advice on the outcome of the 2015 badger culls, published in December 2015, paragraph 12, that consideration should be given to monitoring the disease status of badgers; what (a) proportion and (b) number of badgers from each cull from the current 10 culls have been examined post-mortem to assess prevalence of bovine tuberculosis; and if she will make a statement.
Answered on
20 December 2016
This year a pilot study was started to explore ways in which badger carcases obtained from the cull could be used to gather long term information on levels of disease in badgers. A number of carcases from nine of the areas are being sampled and testing methodologies are being piloted. Findings, including the number of carcases tested, will be published in due course.