Guidance to Natural England on the implementation and enforcement of a badger control policy

We invited comments - to be considered alongside the responses to the 2010 public consultation - before taking a decision on whether to proceed with a policy of badger control.  This was not a further consultation on the proposed policy generally, but an opportunity for key stakeholders to comment on draft Guidance to Natural England.  This guidance set out how Natural England should exercise its functions to issue licences to allow controlled culling and vaccination of badgers in areas of high incidence of bovine TB in cattle in a carefully regulated way for the purpose of controlling the spread of the disease, if a decision were made to permit culling.

• Bovine TB - the government’s approach to controlling the disease