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<p>Applicants for a licence to cull badgers to control the spread of bovine TB (bTB)
must meet Natural England's strict licensing criteria, which specifically includes
measures to guard against the potential risk of perturbation effects as a result of
disturbed badger social groups.</p><p> </p><p>The independent, peer-reviewed academic
study into the effectiveness of badger culling (Downs et al. (2019) Nature Scientific
Reports) which showed a decline in bTB incidence in the first two cull areas of Gloucestershire
and Somerset, also showed a lack of evidence of a 'perturbation effect' in these areas,
unlike the findings of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, where culling led to an
increase in bTB incidence rates outside of cull areas.</p><p> </p>
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