In some areas of England, the government can’t find any more badgers to kill.
Government figures released today show that they killed 19,570 more badgers in 2023 as part of the government-led cull. This figure takes the total number of protected badgers killed since 2012 under the policy to 230,125.
In many areas, particularly in heavily culled parts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, shooters found it hard to reach anywhere near their minimum kill targets – they simply didn’t find the badgers. This chilling reality of the effect of mass badger killing underlines what was submitted to the Bern Convention—that we are in danger of local extinction in England’s cull areas, and badger populations are not recovering.
