Badgers and TB – Does Gassing Spread the Disease?

Eunice D. Overend

doi:10.1017/S0030605300028799

Abstract

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For the past six years the Ministry of Agriculture has been tackling the problem of TB in badgers in a few areas in south-west England by gassing all infected sets and those in immediately adjoining territories as dangerous contact, with the expectation of eliminating all the infected badgers. The author points out that because TB is a stress disease, and because it is impossible to gas every badger in a group simultaneously, gassing may be driving infected individual badgers to join other groups and infect them, thus actually spreading the disease.

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Research Article

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Oryx , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , August 1980 , pp. 338 - 340

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605300028799

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Tuyttens, F. A. M. Delahay, R. J. Macdonald, D. W. Cheeseman, C. L. Long, B. and Donnelly, C. A. 2000. Spatial perturbation caused by a badger (Meles meles) culling operation: implications for the function of territoriality and the control of bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis). Journal of Animal Ecology, Vol. 69, Issue. 5, p. 815.

Macdonald, David W. Riordan, Philip and Mathews, Fiona 2006. Biological hurdles to the control of TB in cattle: A test of two hypotheses concerning wildlife to explain the failure of control. Biological Conservation, Vol. 131, Issue. 2, p. 268.

Carter, Stephen P Delahay, Richard J Smith, Graham C Macdonald, David W Riordan, Philip Etherington, Thomas R Pimley, Elizabeth R Walker, Neil J and Cheeseman, Chris L 2007. Culling-induced social perturbation in Eurasian badgers Meles meles and the management of TB in cattle: an analysis of a critical problem in applied ecology . Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Vol. 274, Issue. 1626, p. 2769.

Cassidy, Angela 2015. ‘Big science’ in the field: experimenting with badgers and bovine TB, 1995–2015. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Vol. 37, Issue. 3, p. 305.

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Sauvé, Caroline C. Berentsen, Are R. Gilbert, Amy T. Conan, Anne and Leighton, Patrick A. 2025. Behavioral and demographic response of small Indian mongooses (Urva auropunctata) to experimental population reduction. The Journal of Wildlife Management, Vol. 89, Issue. 3,

Bengsen, Andrew J. Comte, Sebastien Crittle, Troy Holbery, Suzie Marshall, Darren Marshall, Lachlan Parker, Lee Forsyth, David M. and Fisher, Penny 2025. Aerial shooting is unlikely to cause dispersal or consistent changes in the movements of feral pigs (Sus scrofa). Wildlife Research, Vol. 52, Issue. 6,

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Badgers and TB – Does Gassing Spread the Disease?

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