Government badger control costs 2016
Updated 16 October 2024
漏 Crown copyright 2024
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected].
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at /government/publications/bovine-tb-government-badger-control-costs/government-badger-control-costs-2016
1. Background
On 30 August 2016 Defra published, as part of its measured approach to tackling bovine TB and achieving disease control benefits, Natural England鈥檚 authorisations to local farmers and landowners to carry out targeted badger control in parts of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Cornwall, Devon and Herefordshire.
Operations took place between 29 August and 18 October 2016.
2. Badger control costs
Information on costs to government in 2013-2016 is provided in Table 1 below.
| Badger control costs | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licensing and compliance monitoring | 拢859,000 | 拢1,036,000 | 拢1,003,000 | 拢1,284,000 |
| Humaneness monitoring, including postmortems | 拢2,628,000 | 拢1,515,000 | 拢154,000 | 拢392,000 |
| Efficacy monitoring | 拢2,311,000 | 拢17,000 | 拢0 | 拢0 |
| Advice and assessments | 拢389,000 | 拢294,000 | 拢460,000 | 拢646,000 |
| Other costs, including equipment | 拢107,000 | 拢205,000 | 拢162,000 | 拢53,000 |
| Total cost | 拢6,294,000 | 拢3,067,000 | 拢1,779,000 | 拢2,375,000 |
Information and data on badger control monitoring Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Cornwall, Devon and Herefordshire in 2016 is available.
3. Badger control policing costs funded by Defra
| Police costs 2016 | |
|---|---|
| Avon & Somerset | 拢700,303 |
| Devon & Cornwall | 拢1,238,547 |
| Dorset | 拢572,914 |
| West Mercia | 拢127,593 |
| Warwick | 拢19,411 |
| Gloucestershire | 拢371,230 |
| Total | 拢3,029,998 |
Information on badger control policing costs funded by Defra in 2013, 2014 and 2015.