Badger Trust responds to claims linking badgers to biodiversity decline and bovine TB, highlighting the scientific evidence and calling for conservation policy based on facts, not false narratives.
In the recent Telegraph article, “The farmer, her peerage and claims of a countryside betrayed” (20 May 2026), former NFU president Minette Batters discussed badgers in the context of biodiversity decline and bovine tuberculosis, stating quite firmly that badgers “spread bovine tuberculosis” and “destroy the nests of endangered birds such as curlew and lapwing”.
As Badger Trust Chair, Rosie Wood, makes clear, “Using the standard of evidence in the article, it would be just as accurate to point out that sheep, deer, and dog walkers spread bTB around the countryside” and “destroy the nests of endangered birds such as curlew and lapwing”.
Indeed, hedgehogs, songbirds, wood mice, weasels, stoats, pine martens, otters, foxes, raptors, herons, corvids, and a host of other native British animals ‘destroy’ the nests of endangered birds such as curlew and lapwing.
Whilst the article raises important questions about the pressures facing British farming, food security and the future of the rural economy, all of which deserve serious public attention, it also shows an inaccurate and overly simplistic interpretation of the scientific evidence surrounding badgers. To read the complete article click here.
