Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the expansion of badger culls to 11 new areas of England, what estimate his Department has made of (a) the number of badgers that will be culled in 20202, (b) the number of badgers that will have been culled by the end of 2020 since the introduction of culling in 2013 and (c) the proportion of the national badger population that will have been culled by the end of 2020 since the introduction of culling in 2013.
The minimum and maximum number of badgers to be culled in 2020 can be found on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-to-natural-england-on-setting-minimum-and-maximum-numbers-of-badgers-to-be-controlled-in-2020.
The number of badgers culled between 2013 and 2020 is as follows:
Year | Number of badgers culled |
2013 | 1869 |
2014 | 615 |
2015 | 1467 |
2016 | 10886 |
2017 | 19537 |
2018 | 32934 |
2019 | 35034 |
The estimated badger population of England in 2011-2014 was 424,000. The number of badgers culled each year to 2019 has varied between 0.1% and 8.3% of this estimate.