A Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) consultation on the culling of 4,000 badgers a year was ruled unlawful by the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland yesterday (Wednesday, October 25).
The policy to allow farmer-led groups to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) by shooting badgers was subsequently also ruled unlawful.
The legal challenge was by wildlife advocacy group Wild Justice and the Northern Ireland Badger Group (NIBG).
The primary target of the proceedings was the department’s plan to implement a non-selective cull of badgers as part of its Bovine Tuberculosis Strategy for Northern Ireland.
DAERA’s strategy included controlling or eradicating bTB in Northern Ireland by controlled shooting of free-roaming badgers, delivered and paid for by farmer-led companies.
Justice Scoffield, said the department’s consultation did not meet the requirements for a lawful consultation.
Scoffield said DAERA failed to comply with the requirements of a fair and lawful consultation, by failing to provide consultees with sufficient information about the basis for its proposed decision to permit them to engage with the department’s thinking.
After the ruling, Wild Justice said: “We are obviously thrilled that DAERA’s policy to allow a non-selective cull of badgers by farmer-led groups has been quashed and that our legal arguments have been upheld with such convincing authority by Mr Justice Scoffield.
“We are mindful that DAERA may try again to implement a similar policy and we stand ready to challenge any proposal that fails to comply with due consideration of not just public law, but also of the scientific evidence and welfare aspects associated with such action.”
Mike Rendle of NIBG said the judgement has vindicated the group’s “very grave concerns” about the way the bTB strategy consultation was conducted and the decision to implement a farmer-led cull.
This, he said, would inflict “immense suffering on great numbers of healthy badgers”.
“The scientific evidence clearly shows that cattle, not badgers, are driving bovine TB in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“Badger culling is not only cruel and ineffective, it is a costly distraction that has no benefit for cattle, farmers or badgers.”
A DAERA spokesperson said: “The department will now carefully consider the judgment and its next steps.”
DAERA consultation
DAERA’s original 2021 consultation document referred to a “business case” as being the basis for its recommendations and decisions.
NIBG said the department “singled out” option eight as its preferred option, which was the culling by shooting of free-roaming badgers by farmer-led companies, and asked consultees if they agreed.
Without the business case, Wild Justice and NIBG said they could not understand how that option had been chosen.
Wild Justice and NIBG said that the former minister that proposed the decision in March 2022 to allow farmers to use rifles to kill badgers to tackle bTB “failed to properly consider” the responses they were able to make.
E.g., the groups said their views on “humaneness” of the options available does not appear to have been factored into the decision-making process.
“The possibility that informed consultation responses could have affected the outcome is clear because when the options were scored, the most humane option (test, vaccinate and remove (TVR) scored only 10% lower than the least humane option chosen (a non-selective cull),” NIBG said.
Dr. Mark Jones of wildlife conservation charity the Born Free Foundation said the group is delighted that the court upheld Wild Justice and NIBG’s challenge to DAERA’s proposals.
“DAERA’s refusal to disclose the full details of its business case during the consultation process on its policy made it impossible for consultees to scrutinise the financial and other arguments it had in mind,” he said.
“The introduction of an England-style badger cull in Northern Ireland, when the latest peer-reviewed science from England clearly demonstrates the failure of this approach to reduce bovine TB in cattle, has no basis in evidence, and would result in the unnecessary and inhumane killing of thousands of perfectly healthy badgers.
“DAERA should now permanently abandon any such plans and focus instead on the cattle-based measures required to bring bovine TB, which has such devastating impacts for farmers and their cattle, under control,” he concluded.