Policy paper

Government badger control costs 2021

Updated 16 October 2024

1.听叠补肠办驳谤辞耻苍诲

On 7 September 2021, 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 the counties of:

  • Wiltshire
  • Shropshire
  • Staffordshire
  • Hampshire
  • Gloucestershire
  • Berkshire
  • Northamptonshire
  • Oxfordshire
  • Herefordshire
  • Worcestershire

Operations took place between 31 August and 2 November 2021.

2. Badger control costs

Information on costs to government in 2014 to 2021.

Badger control costs 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Licensing and compliance monitoring 拢1,036,000 拢1,003,000 拢1,284,000 拢1,289,000 拢1,312,000 拢1,459,000 拢1,541,000 拢1,542,000
GPS and Humaneness monitoring, including post mortems 拢1,515,000 拢154,000 拢392,000 拢506,000 拢352,000 拢388,000 拢282,000 拢254,000
Efficacy monitoring 拢17,000 拢0 拢0 拢0 拢0 拢0 拢0 拢0
Advice and assessments 拢294,000 拢460,000 拢646,000 拢728,000 拢410,000 拢314,000 拢313,000 拢88,000
Other costs, including equipment 拢205,000 拢162,000 拢53,000 拢49,000 拢1,000 拢20,000 拢16,000 拢3,000
Total cost 拢3,067,000 拢1,779,000 拢2,375,000 拢2,572,000 拢2,075,000 拢2,181,000 拢2,152,000 拢1,887,000

3. Badger control policing costs funded by Defra

The total cost for policing in 2021 across all participating forces was of 拢3,589,000.

Policing costs are also published by individual forces.

Information on badger control costs to government, including policing costs funded by Defra in 2020 and previous years