Government badger control costs 2016
Updated 7 September 2023
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/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’s 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 | £859,000 | £1,036,000 | £1,003,000 | £1,284,000 |
| Humaneness monitoring, including postmortems | £2,628,000 | £1,515,000 | £154,000 | £392,000 |
| Efficacy monitoring | £2,311,000 | £17,000 | £0 | £0 |
| Advice and assessments | £389,000 | £294,000 | £460,000 | £646,000 |
| Other costs, including equipment | £107,000 | £205,000 | £162,000 | £53,000 |
| Total cost | £6,294,000 | £3,067,000 | £1,779,000 | £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 | £700,303 |
| Devon & Cornwall | £1,238,547 |
| Dorset | £572,914 |
| West Mercia | £127,593 |
| Warwick | £19,411 |
| Gloucestershire | £371,230 |
| Total | £3,029,998 |
Information on badger control policing costs funded by Defra in 2013, 2014 and 2015.