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‘Wildlife friendly’ farmland reduces risk of bovine TB in cattle

Studies by Oxford researchers suggest that wildlife friendly farmland helps to control bovine tuberculosis in cattle. They conclude farms with ungrazed wildlife strips and a greater availability, width and continuity of hedgerow have less bTB incidence in cattle.

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and their colleagues from Newcastle University studied data from 60 herds with a recent history of bTB and 60 farms where there was no incidence of bTB. They looked at factors like farmland habitat, topography, badger density and herd size and discovered the number of wildlife strips, hedgerow gaps, and abundance of hedgerow were key indicators in cutting the risk of bTB. Their work suggests that an increase in hedgerow length of 1 km per 100 hectares could reduce the odds ratio of bTB by about 12.5 per cent. This equates to the annual risk of bTB changing from the current rate of 9.2 per cent (2,152 confirmed incidents in 23,471 herds in 2004) to 8.1 per cent (1,901 incidents) for herds in the West of England - that’s an annual reduction of 251 infected herds.

The research suggests that recent reforms of the EU Common Agriculture Policy (2005), which rewards farmers for more sympathetic land management, may therefore be delivering improvements in animal health.

Dr Fiona Mathews of the WildlifeCRU emphasised that the researchers need to carry out further work to establish why habitat is linked to bTB risk and said: ‘We believe habitat could influence cattle contact rates, or be associated with land management practices that affect the transmission of the disease.’

The government, against the advice of its scientific advisors (Independent Scientific Group, ISG) is currently proposing a cull of badgers as a bTB control strategy. Public consultation on this proposal will end this Friday (10 March 2006).

Professor David MacDonald, a co-author of the paper, commented: ‘The current evidence is that another badger cull is unlikely to solve the problem of bovine tuberculosis in cattle, and might make things worse, so we need to look for other solutions. Our finding that habitat features are associated with reduced risk adds a new dimension to the debate on the role of badgers in the spread of the disease and offers another potential route for controlling it’. He added, ‘the fact that these same habitat characteristics may offer a biodiversity gain could offer an unexpected opportunity for a double win’.

Notes to Editors
This research will be published in Fiona Mathews et al. ‘Bovine tuberculosis in cattle: reduced risk on wildlife-friendly farms’ Biology Letters online on Wednesday 8 March 2006