Anti-badger cull flyer on a stile near Blakeney, Gloucestershire. Photograph: Sam Frost for The Guardian
Plans to roll out the controversial badger cull pilots nationwide across England have been dropped by Owen Paterson after a damning independent report found the shoots were not effective or humane.
The two pilot culls, in Gloucestershire and Somerset, will continue with improvements recommended by the independent expert panel (IEP), including more and better-trained marksmen. But plans to start badger culls in 10 other areas have been abandoned, the environment secretary announced on Thursday, telling MPs he was taking the responsible approach.
"This disease is the most pressing animal health problem in the UK," Paterson said, noting that 26,600 cattle were slaughtered in 2013 and that the disease had cost taxpayers £500m in the past decade. But he accepted that "on effectiveness … the culls did not make as much progress as we hoped." He said the cull operators had often faced a "disgraceful amount of intimidation from some of the more extreme protesters".
The shadow environment secretary, Maria Eagle, said the abandoned roll-out was a humiliating climbdown for Paterson. "Consistent with his inept handling of this shambles he has put prejudice before science, secrecy before transparency, conflict before consensus and posturing before good policy," she said.
Prof Rosie Woodroffe, a leading badger expert who conducted alandmark decade-long trial of badger culling, said even the two pilot culls should be halted. "The pilot culls performed so poorly in effectiveness and humaneness, I would stop and invest in something more promising," she said.
The culls, aimed at curbing the rise of tuberculosis in cattle, were dismissed by senior scientists as "mindless" before they started and have provoked huge public opposition since, and led to ministers losing a vote in the House of Commons. The night-time shoots failed to kill enough badgers in the allotted time, which scientists warned could lead to escaping badgers spreading TB more widely and increasing it in cattle.
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