Threat to badger culls across England as legal challenge mounted by campaigner

Companies

Mr Rabbetts said: “When the cull companies were set up, this was certainly not a requirement.

“They have not recorded this data and they do not have access to every person controlling foxes in the area.

“You could be in a situation where you have to go to 100 or more farmers to try to find out the level of fox control on each farm.

“To do it in any single year is hard, but to try to backdate the information is even harder.”

FG understands all cull licences will, in future, require a fox control condition, which NE believes will not be burdensome if the level of existing control is sufficient to mitigate for any potential increase in fox numbers.

But Mr Rabbetts warned making fox control a licence condition was the union’s main concern.

He said: “If the companies are not able to collate all this data and it becomes a licence condition, they will ask whether it is worth putting themselves at risk.”

He also questioned why cull companies were being forced to carry out the work when fox control was not part of their remit and NE has responsibility for collating data on wild bird populations.

A Natural England spokesman said: “We take our role in assessing and issuing badger control licences very seriously.

“As is normal practice, we will continue to review and improve our work to assess the impact of badger control operations on protected sites, including SSSIs.”