One of the UK’s largest landowners is to begin vaccinating badgers against bovine tuberculosis, as the government prepares to announce its potentially controversial control strategy for the disease.

Bovine TB (bTB) has long been a hot issue in the UK, with many farmers favouring culling of badgers, which can carry the disease. Evidence for the effectiveness of such a cull is hotly contested. Last year the government’s suggestion that it would allow culling in England generated more heat (see: Badger cull fight flares up again in UK).

Now the National Trust, a charity which owns tracts of countryside as well as many historic buildings, says it is to begin injecting badgers on its Killerton estate in Devon with a vaccine against bTB. David Bullock, head of nature conservation at the trust, says the four-year programme should not be considered a trial, as evidence already exists that vaccination of badgers is effective at preventing bTB spread. (Including, for example, this recent paper.)

“What we’re doing is not a trial – it’s a pilot,” he says. “We go with the science; we’re going to do it.”

Mark Harold, director for the trust’s South West region, said in a statement, “In many areas of the UK there are clearly practical problems in implementing an effective cull of badgers to reduce bovine TB in cattle. In these instances, vaccination of badgers would appear to be the most effective ways of controlling the wildlife reservoir of the disease.”

Developing an oral vaccine for badger vaccination would make such a project vastly cheaper, and allow a wider roll out. However the government’s plans are more likely to involve its previous suggestions of letting farmers trap or shoot badgers.

Vaccinating cattle is not considered feasible as there is not currently a test to differentiate between cattle carrying TB and cattle vaccinated against it, meaning the meat and milk from vaccinated animals cannot be sold around Europe.

Image: detail from photo from BadgerHero via wikipedia.