comparing badger (meles meles) management strategies for reducing tuberculosis incidence in cattle比较獾(梅莱斯梅莱斯)管理策略降低结核病发病率在牛.pdfVIP

Comparing Badger (Meles meles) Management Strategies for Reducing Tuberculosis Incidence in Cattle 1 2 1 Graham C. Smith *, Robbie A. McDonald , David Wilkinson 1The Food and Environment Research Agency, York, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom, 2 Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall, United Kingdom Abstract Bovine tuberculosis (bTB), caused by Mycobacterium bovis, continues to be a serious economic problem for the British cattle industry. The Eurasian badger (Meles meles) is partly responsible for maintenance of the disease and its transmission to cattle. Previous attempts to manage the disease by culling badgers have been hampered by social perturbation, which in some situations is associated with increases in the cattle herd incidence of bTB. Following the licensing of an injectable vaccine, we consider the relative merits of management strategies to reduce bTB in badgers, and thereby reduce cattle herd incidence. We used an established simulation model of the badger-cattle-TB system and investigated four proposed strategies: business as usual with no badger management, large-scale proactive badger culling, badger vaccination, and culling with a ring of vaccination around it. For ease of comparison with empirical data, model treatments were applied over 150 km2 and were evaluated over the whole of a 300 km2 area, comprising the core treatment area and a ring of approximately 2 km. The effects of treatment were evaluated over a 10-year period comprising treatment for five years and the subsequent five year period without treatment. Against a background of existing disease control measures, where 144 cattle herd incidents might be expected over 10 years, badger culling prevented 26 cattl