Culling could increase rather than reduce TB  There have been trials of culls of badgers before and they have not been successful. In a randomised badger culling trial in 30 areas of England each measuring 100km2 it was found that “removing badgers by culling was found to disrupt their social organisation, causing remaining badgers to range more widely both inside and around the outside of culled areas.” The result of increased movement was “Proactive culling was associated with a 25% increase in the incidence of cattle TB on neighbouring un-culled land.” [1] Reactive culling can result in even higher increases with the risk of bovine TB more than doubling. [2] Clearly this could be dealt with through a complete cull that would not encourage movement of badgers but as the badger remains protected this is not possible. There are also difficulties with knowing how many badgers there really are because they live underground and only come out a night. Counting by numbers of setts is unreliable when there may be many that are disused or where there are badgers that use more than one sett. [3]  [1] Bourne, John, et al., ‘Final Report of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB’, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs,  Pp.19-20  [2] Imperial College London News Release, ‘badger Localised reactive badger culling raises bovine tuberculosis risk, new analysis confirms’, Imperial College London, 13 July 2011,   [3] Carrington, Damian, ‘Counting the cost: fears badger cull could worsen bovine TB crisis’, The Guardian, 27 May 2013,