Issues are far from black and white over disease cull plan for badgers

She had popped her head above ground just as the moon rose over the rim of the dale. Emerging by stages into full view to sit warily on the edge of the sett, everything about her suggests caution. Another face appears behind her wearing an expression which is just as shy and winning. A distant aeroplane engine makes them both vanish in an instant.

A minute later the little pantomime begins again. This time four faces appear in succession, two out of different holes. In the ground beneath where we sit watching, lie tunnels and chambers, entrances and exits that extend up the hill and along the valley.

The animals have come up in an area about the size of two tennis courts. It's a secret badger adventure playground. A mixture of peanuts and dog biscuits has been scattered about to entice them out and to get them to hang about long enough to be viewed before they go off hunting for the night. A light with a red filter does not bother them and as their confidence grows they are unperturbed by a white spotlight being turned on them.

They set about their daily chores. Bedding seems to be the main issue tonight. One of the sows gathers up some dry grass to her midriff and backs smartly down a hole. She repeats it several times. If you watch long long enough the chances are another badger will bring it all back out again. Domestic harmony it seems is not all it might be. Badgers are inclined to fight – biting each other at the base of the tail is a favourite tactic – but there isn't so much as a frown between these four.

Badgers are a species protected by law. Even when they are closely observed – and the community in this dale has been watched and fed weekly for two years – they are still quite a mystery. There were 14 here last year when new cubs were born. On this night over a three-hour watching period, four adults showed up. They all looked sleek and healthy enough to enter for a top prize at a Badger's Crufts. Two of them don't belong to last year's family.

Young sows are allowed to stick around in the community. There was no sign of the big boar who was last spotted scarred and limping. He may be dead, maybe after being challenged by a younger male. A young boar may remain if it is prepared to knuckle under, but the usual pattern is for them to be thrown out to fend for themselves at this time of year. That's why so many end up as roadkill as they roam further afield. At least three have been flattened on the A64 between York and Leeds this week.

Badgers are our largest wild carnivore and make a compelling evening's viewing. But even when you get up close systematically, these animals remain out of reach. They have complicated social structures which defy full understanding. And if we don't really know how to predict what they will do, or when, or why, how can we rely on assurances that by taking them out we will eradicate bovine TB?

Badgers are carriers of it – although not in Yorkshire. The affected areas are Wales, the south west and west of England where about 40,000 infected cattle have to be slaughtered a year. It drives farmers to despair and costs us as taxpayers 60m to compensate them for their losses. The disease is probably transmitted by cows grazing on grass with urine or faeces from an infected badger or by consuming contaminated cattle feed or drinking water.

This week the Government launched a public consultation into whether a cull should be part of a package of measures to control the disease. It would license farmers to kill badgers, starting next May. About 6,000 badgers would be shot in the first year. The farming minister, Jim Paice, says he expects to face legal challenges and "some aggravation".

No wonder. The new move seems to fly in the face of advice from a ten-year government-commissioned study. The conclusion of the work by the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) was: "We consider it likely that licensing farmers to cull badgers would not only fail to achieve a beneficial effect, but would entail a substantial risk of increasing the incidence of cattle TB and spreading the disease."

Two months ago plans for a cull in west Wales were halted, after a legal challenge by the Badger Trust.

From a practical point of view, a cull is not as straightforward as its advocates make it appear. Putting baiting traps down to shoot badgers is not a method certain to catch them all. Some of the badgers I watched this week decline to eat anything that's put down. Those that are culled will leave empty homes which those in bordering territories will move over to occupy. In other words, this latest approach looks overly simplistic.

Some farmers look kindly on badgers. Many regard them a pest. Apart from the bovine TB risk, you can see why. Badgers can create quite a bit of small-scale damage by rolling in cereal fields, eating crops like fruits, cereals, and sweetcorn and undermining fields and farm tracks with their burrowing. They can also be bad news for ground-nesting birds and hedgehogs.

Even some people in the conservation camp concede that the badger population may have grown too large. The last official badger population survey in 1997 indicated a population increase of 77 per cent over ten years to between 300,000 and 400,0005.

The badger, however, is a symbol and a potent rallying point for conservationists. The Badger Trust, an organisation which covers the whole of the country, is especially lively in Yorkshire where there are eleven federated groups. They are mobilising their forces for a National Badger Day two weeks today.

The Wildlife Trust, with 800,000 members (and a badger for a logo) argue bovine TB needs to be tackled on many fronts, including the vaccination of badgers, cattle controls and improved biosecurity on farms.

The National Farmers' Union also supports the research on vaccines to control TB in both badgers and cattle. But a vaccine is ten years away and in the meantime they want to start shooting. If they do, where does it logically end?

Bovine TB is also widespread in the deer population in parts of the south west.

CW 18/9/10