Baby chicks do basic arithmetic

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7975260.stm
Page last updated at 09:03 GMT, Wednesday, 1 April 2009 10:03 UK

Baby chicks do basic arithmetic
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News


Chicks always want to join the larger group

Baby birds can do arithmetic, say researchers in Italy.

Scientists from the universities of Padova and Trento demonstrated chicks’ ability to add and subtract objects as they were moved behind two screens.

Lucia Regolin, an author of the study said the animals “performed basic arithmetic” to work out which screen concealed the larger group of objects.

The findings are reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Chicks always try to stay close to objects they are reared with – just as they stay close to and follow their mother as soon as they hatch. This instant recognition is known as “imprinting”.
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Link to Video: See a chick hunt for a hidden ball in an experiment designed to test the bird’s memory

“We had already found that the chicks have a tendency to approach a group containing more of these familiar objects,” explained Professor Regolin, who studies animal behaviour at the University of Padova.

She and her team were able to test the birds’ numerical skills as they followed the objects – which, in this instance, were small plastic balls.

“We used the little plastic containers you get inside Kinder eggs and suspended them from fishing line,” Professor Regolin told BBC News. “We made these balls ‘disappear’ by moving them behind the screens one at a time.”

Counting chickens

In each of the mini maths tests, a chick watched from a clear-fronted holding box while one of the researchers slowly moved the balls behind the screens – three behind one screen and two behind the other.

The front door of the box was then opened, releasing the chick into the tiny arena, so it could walk around and select a screen to look behind.

They chose correctly – adding up the numbers based on groups of objects they couldn’t see at that moment
Lucia Regolin
University of Padova

“The chicks still approached the larger of the two groups first, even though they had to rely on memory to work out which screen to choose,” said Professor Regolin.

Swapping the objects from one screen to another didn’t fool the maths-performing chicks.

“In a further experiment, once we had hidden the balls behind each screen, we transferred some of them from one to the other,” Professor Regolin explained.

The birds, she said, were able to “count” the balls that were moved to work out which screen hid the larger set at the end of the transfer.

“They still chose correctly – adding up the numbers based on groups of objects they couldn’t see at that moment.”

It is already known that many non-human primates and monkeys can count, and even domestic dogs have been found to be capable of simple additions.

But this is the first time the ability has been seen in such young animals, and with no prior training.

Evolution study focuses on snail

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Page last updated at 00:15 GMT, Monday, 30 March 2009 01:15 UK

Evolution study focuses on snail
By Sarah Mukherjee
Environment correspondent, BBC News


The banded snail has been studied for at least 60 years

Members of the public across Europe are being asked to look in their gardens or local green spaces for banded snails as part of a UK-led evolutionary study.

The Open University says its Evolution MegaLab will be one of the largest evolutionary studies ever undertaken.

Scientists believe the research could show how the creatures have evolved in the past 40 years to reflect changes in temperature and their predators.

The six-month study, starting in April, will ask people to submit data online.

‘Ideal organism’

Professor Jonathan Silvertown, from the OU, said: “I was thinking about Darwin year and how we could help people get an idea of what Darwin was talking about.

“The banded snail has been studied for 60 or more years, so it’s an ideal organism to use. It’s something that’s very common, we know what the genetics are and it’s safe to handle.”

Professor Silvertown said there were two main evolutionary drivers that affect where yellow and brown banded snails are found.

The first is climate – darker-shelled snails tend to be further north, and scientists believe this is because dark shells get warmer quicker than lighter ones.

Darker-shelled snails could also be active for longer – which would make a difference to how much they could eat and how many offspring they could have.

The second evolutionary driver is predation by thrushes.

The birds hunt by sight and they find it more difficult to find yellow-striped shells around grass and brown shells against brown leaves – so yellow-shelled snails have been more common in grassland and darker ones in areas with brownish background environments.

‘Genuine study’

“We think [the snails] have changed in the last 40 or 50 years,” said Professor Silvertown.

“Firstly, the climate has warmed up, so we think the distribution of colours has probably changed.

“Secondly, thrushes have become far less common in the last 30 years or so – so snail colouring in different habitats might be less important.”

This is what the Evolution MegaLab, which will run from April to October, will be trying to discover.

“There’s a lot of historical data on the website,” said Professor Silvertown.

“We have data from the past on 8,000 or so snail populations, so if you submit your data on the website, it will automatically make a comparison telling you whether there’s been any change in your area.”

Professor Silvertown said this was a genuine scientific study and not just a public relations exercise.

It has been funded in part by the Royal Society and the British Council, and he and his team are hoping that a major report will be published on the data collected at the beginning of next year.

He also points out that this could be an invaluable tool for researchers of the future who will be able to look at this project and compare any further evolutionary changes.

Bees and ants ‘operate in teams’

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Page last updated at 00:06 GMT, Monday, 23 March 2009

Bees and ants ‘operate in teams’

Bees and ants are true team players unlike other creatures who seek safety in numbers for selfish reasons, according to researchers.

Scientists from Edinburgh and Oxford Universities used mathematical models to study “swarm behaviour”.

They found that bison or fish want to get to the centre of large groups to keep themselves safe from predators.

Ants and bees worked together as a single unit, and were prepared to die for the greater good of the colony.

The study’s findings appear to echo the insect worlds portrayed in the animated films Antz and Bee Movie, in which the characters live in rigidly conformist societies.

In a beehive, the workers are happy to help the community, even to die, because the queen carries and passes on their genes
Dr Andy Gardner

In some co-operative groups of animals – known as superorganisms – members are closely related, and work together to ensure their shared genetic material is passed on, the researchers concluded.

In other groups they perform a policing role, for instance in honey bee hives where worker bees destroy any eggs not laid by the queen to ensure the queen’s offspring survive.

Dr Andy Gardner, from the University of Edinburgh, said: “We often see animals appearing to move in unison, such as bison or fish.

“However, what looks like a team effort is in fact each animal jostling to get to the middle of the group to evade predators.

“By contrast, an ant nest or a beehive can behave as a united organism in its own right. In a beehive, the workers are happy to help the community, even to die, because the queen carries and passes on their genes.

“However, superorganisms are quite rare, and only exist when the internal conflict within a social group is suppressed – so we cannot use this term, for example, to describe human societies.”

The findings, funded by the Royal Society, are published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Arctic sea monster’s giant bite

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Page last updated at 15:45 GMT, Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Arctic sea monster’s giant bite

Researchers believe “Predator X” could have fed on other big reptiles

A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic had a bite that would have been able to crush a 4×4 car, according to its discoverers.

Researchers say the marine reptile, which measured an impressive 15m (50ft) long, had a bite force of about 16 tonnes (35,000lbs).

The creature’s partial skull was dug up last summer in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard by a Norwegian-led team.

Dubbed “Predator X”, it patrolled the oceans some 147 million years ago.

Its jaws may have been more powerful than those of a Tyrannosaurus rex, though estimates of the dinosaur’s bite vary substantially.

It is thought to belong to a new species of pliosaur – a group of large, short-necked reptiles that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.

But even by the standards of this group, the creature’s size has astonished scientists.

Its estimated length exceeds that of another large pliosaur, dubbed “The Monster”, which was uncovered in Svalbard a year earlier than this one.

Expedition leader Jorn Harald Hurum, from the University of Oslo’s Natural History Museum, said “The Monster” would have been big enough to chomp on a small car.

He said the bite estimates for the latest fossil forced a re-think.

This one, he said, might have been able to “crush a Hummer”, referring to General Motors’ large 4×4 vehicle.

Researchers say the shape and proportional size of the brain resembles that of another “apex predator”: the great white shark.

The biggest marine reptile on record is a 21m-long ichthyosaur, Shonisaurus sikanniensis, from Triassic Period rocks in British Columbia, Canada.

Dying bees ‘were not a priority’

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Page last updated at 18:21 GMT, Wednesday, 18 March 2009

Dying bees ‘were not a priority’

The government is investigating why bee numbers are declining

A top civil servant has admitted research into bee disease has not been a “top priority” despite mounting concern about declining populations.

But Dame Helen Ghosh, of the environment food and rural affairs department, said more money was now being ploughed into solving the crisis.

The registered bee population in the UK has shrunk by between 10% and 15% but the real number may be much higher.

There are fears a Europe-wide shortage of bees could affect crop pollination.

But Dame Helen, who was giving evidence to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, played down fears food production could be affected, arguing bees were “one of many” crop pollinators.

But she said the government had woken up to beekeepers’ concerns and had recently announced a “healthy bees plan” – to cover research, husbandry and disease control – and another £500,000 a year from Defra for the next five years, supplemented by more money from partners.

Bee base

And she said £1.1m would be spent over the next few years to get more people registered on the voluntary “bee base”.

Public Accounts Committee chairman Edward Leigh said £200,000 spent on bee health research seemed “very little”.

And he said he was surprised there were only 37 part-time inspectors at Defra’s bee unit and had only been 32 inspections per 100 registered bee keepers in 2008.

Defra bee expert Stephen Hunter said their hours were being extended and more inspectors employed to seek out more bee keepers who were not registered.

In a sense I am admitting we had not given this the high priority we should have done
Dame Helen Ghosh

Dame Helen, Defra’s permanent secretary, was asked whether the department had taken its “eye off the ball” in dealing with bee disease.

She said: “In a sense I am admitting we had not given this the high priority we should have done.”

Asked why Defra had not acted earlier, Dame Helen said, when economic times were tight it was not been a financial priority in government.

Amateur beekeepers

But as evidence of a problem has become clearer, ministers had decided to put a “significant extra boost” into research.

She denied being “laid back” in dealing with the problem saying the investment being put in showed the government was being “far from complacent”.

The committee was told there were 37,000 registered bee keepers in England and Wales – but as there was no compulsory registration, unlike in France and New Zealand – that was only a rough estimate of how many people actually kept bees.

Dame Helen and Stephen Hunter told MPs that because the “vast majority” of beekeeping was done by amateurs in Britain – unlike the commercial ventures elsewhere – the best approach was to work in partnership rather than be “heavy handed”.

The register in New Zealand was difficult to keep up to date and there was a question of what you would do to enforce it, Mr Hunter argued.

Labour MP Don Touhig said 39 commercial crops relied on insect pollination and bees were estimated to be worth about £200m a year to the British economy

Asked if their decline threatened the food chain, Dame Helen said they played an “important role,” most significantly in pollinating apples, runner beans and dwarf beans, but added: “They are one of many pollinators.”

She added: “I do not believe it is a threat to the food chain.”

The MPs also asked why a National Audit Office report had found only three reported cases of bee disease in Scotland – compared with 463 in Wales and 8,071 in England.

Bee health is a devolved issue, handled separately in Scotland, although Mr Hunter said they were in close contact with their Scottish colleagues.

He suggested the nature and levels of bee disease varied between different parts of the UK and said there was no evidence Scottish inspectors were missing vast numbers of bee disease.

But Mr Leigh said he was “amazed” at that explanation: “Disease does not stop at the border between England and Scotland.”

Hungry whales steal birds’ dinner

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7940396.stm
Page last updated at 09:08 GMT, Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Hungry whales steal birds’ dinner
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

Link to Video: The birds’ bait ball becomes a bite-sized snack for a hungry humpback

Humpback whales have come up with a novel way for getting an easy snack – stealing birds’ dinners.

A BBC crew filmed seabirds carefully corralling unwieldy shoals of herring into tightly packed “bait balls” from which the fish are easy to pluck.

But they discovered that passing whales would wait for the birds to complete their hard graft before devouring the ball of fish in a single gulp.

The team said this was the first time they had seen this behaviour.

The footage, filmed off the coast of North America, forms part of the BBC wildlife series Nature’s Great Events: The Great Feast.

Fish banquet

The team witnessed the whales’ crafty behaviour as they set up to film vast shoals of herring as they gathered to feed on plankton blooms.

The whale came in and scooped up the whole thing in pretty much one gulp – mouth open, whoosh, and the whole thing was gone
Joe Stevens, producer

While the fish feast, diving birds also congregate, eyeing an opportunity for their own fishy banquet.

Joe Stevens, a producer on the programme, said: “Murres (a type of guillemot) dive under the shoal and whittle it down into a ball of fish, using the surface of the water to contain it. They dart around it, picking off the fish.

“Other seabirds like gulls then come in to get bits of the bait balls.”

But while the team expected to capture this spectacle on camera, they were unprepared for what came next.

Mr Stevens explained: “We had a cameraman in the water – and we started to notice lots of whales.

“And we thought: ‘What would happen if the whales got interested in these balls of fish?’ And then the whales did get interested.

Humpbacks migrate from Hawaii to reach the fish feast

“One came in and scooped up the whole thing in pretty much one gulp – mouth open, whoosh, and the whole thing was gone.”

It was a bit of a shock for the underwater cameraman, he added.

Mr Stevens said the crew witnessed the humpbacks scoffing the bite-sized bait balls several times.

He said: “It was like the whales had noticed what the birds were doing, and let the birds do all the hard work of creating the balls of fish so they could then come in to scoop them up.”

He added: “You have to take your hat off to them – it is when you see them doing things like that, you realise that they are really very very clever and that they are aware of their environment and what is going on.”

Link to Video: The four whales launch a co-ordinated attack on the huge sea lion

While filming the series, the Natural History Unit crew also captured another rare event on film – a clash between four killer whales (orcas) and a one-tonne Steller’s sea lion.

The footage shows the whales launching a co-ordinated attack on the lone male, eventually beating it to death.

Smaller sea lions often fall prey to whale attacks

While attacks on smaller sea lions are common, it is rare for whales to take on such an enormous and therefore potentially dangerous creature.

Mr Stevens said: “The males can be absolutely massive – about one-tonne in weight – and they have got really big teeth. For an orca, a bite from one of those big sea lions could be fatal.

“But in this case, this male sea lion was out in open water, and for whatever reason they came across him and decided to attack.”

The team filmed the killer whale family as they set about their assault.

Mr Stevens said: “The whales would come through as a pair, one would be slightly in front and would distract the sea lion’s attention so he would look one way, and then the second one would hit him.

“Basically they were trying to beat him up to tire him out and wear him down. They would leave him for a few minutes and then come back and continue with the onslaught, before eventually taking him underwater to feast.”

Mr Stevens said it was difficult to film the sea lion’s ordeal.

He said: “Both of those creatures were doing what they do – in one way you feel amazingly privileged to see it and film it, but to actually witness it in the flesh is actually quite harrowing.”

Nature’s Great Events: The Great Feast on Wednesday 18 March on BBC One at 2100 GMT and is repeated on Sunday at 1800 GMT

Fife aquarium breeds deadly frogs

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Page last updated at 11:40 GMT, Wednesday, 18 March 2009

Fife aquarium breeds deadly frogs

The golden arrow poison dart frog has very poisonous skin

A frog so poisonous that it can kill up to 200 people has been successfully bred at a Fife aquarium.

The golden arrow poison dart frog secretes toxin from its skin, which is used by south American tribesmen to poison their blow-gun darts.

The amphibian is under threat in the wild due to loss of habitat and pollution in its native region of Chaco in West Columbia.

Deep Sea World in North Queensferry has now bred nine of the frogs.

The centre’s breeding programme will play an important role in protecting the species by reducing the number of frogs being taken from the wild for captivity.

They’ve passed the critical stage of development from tadpoles into froglets and they now look like perfect miniature replicas of their parents
Michael Morris
Deep Sea World

Scientists believe the frogs produce their chemical arsenal by metabolising toxins contained in their prey – mostly insects, ants and other invertebrates.

Michael Morris, Deep Sea World aquarist, said: “These beautiful frogs are under increasing threat in the wild due to loss of habitat and pollution and we are delighted to have been able to breed them successfully here in Scotland.

“It’s imperative we are able to mimic exactly their wild environment in order for the species to thrive in captivity and it’s a real achievement they are breeding so successfully.

“They’ve passed the critical stage of development from tadpoles into froglets and they now look like perfect miniature replicas of their parents.”

There are about 70 different species of poison dart frogs found throughout the rainforests of central and south America.

Loss of habitat threatens their long-term survival chances and captive breeding programmes are being set up worldwide to try and safeguard their future.

Despite their deadly status, it is hoped that the golden arrow frog could one day help save lives.

Medical researchers are developing muscle relaxants, heart stimulants, and anaesthetics made from the frogs’ toxins which have the potential to become a far more effective and less addictive alternative to morphine.

Fungus devastates ‘chicken’ frog

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Page last updated at 18:54 GMT, Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Fungus devastates ‘chicken’ frog
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Dead mountain chicken now litter the streams of Montserrat

Montserrat’s “mountain chicken” frog has become the latest victim of the killer fungal disease that is devastating amphibians worldwide.

UK researchers say that only two small pockets of the animals on the tiny Caribbean island remain disease-free.

The mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) is one of the world’s largest frogs, and appears on the coat of arms of neighbouring Dominica.

Conservationists plan to take surviving frogs into captive breeding programmes.

They suspect the chytrid fungus entered Montserrat on small frogs stowing away in consignments of produce from Dominica.

If this was killing mammals or birds in the same way it’s killing amphibians, millions and millions would have been spent on it
Dr Andrew Cunningham, ZSL

“We’ve always been afraid that frogs coming in banana consignments from Dominica would bring chytrid and that it would then spread into the centre of the island,” said John Fa, director of conservation science at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

“The northern populations are closer to the port, and the disease appears to have spread southward along the river systems.

“Essentially, all populations to the north and north-west of the centre hills have been decimated, and there are just two remaining populations of seemingly healthy animals in the south-eastern corner.”

An expedition in 2005 found no sign of fungal infection.

Clean sweep

The frogs are so called because their meat tastes like chicken. In both Caribbean islands – the only places where they naturally occur now – hunting was already impacting populations before the arrival of chytrid.

Most of the Montserrat populations were also affected by the volcanic eruptions that began in 1995, although the creation of an “exclusion zone” around the volcano’s slopes has provided some help to wildlife by freeing it from human pressures.

Events on Montserrat now appear to be mimicking what happened on Dominica in 2002.

Within 15 months of the fungus arriving, about 80% of the island’s mountain chicken had been wiped out.

First identified just over a decade ago, the fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) has spread through hundreds of amphibian species on different continents.

It sweeps some to extinction in a matter of months, while others are apparently immune.

“We still don’t know how chytrid kills frogs, and there’s some very basic stuff about the biology of the fungus that we need to understand,” observed Andrew Cunningham from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

“We’ve known about it for 10 years, but so little money has been spent on it.

“If this was killing mammals or birds in the same way it’s killing amphibians, millions and millions would have been spent on it.”

In captivity, chemicals can be used to rid amphibians of the fungus, but as yet there is no way to cure them in the wild, or to cleanse infected water bodies.

As a result, many conservation groups are focusing their energies on establishing captive populations.

Durrell and other conservation organisations already have mountain chicken in captivity, and will be taking more from the apparently healthy Montserrat populations in the coming weeks.

In contrast to some other operations, though, it plans to treat and return some frogs to the wild within a couple of years, placing them in areas that appear to be free of chytrid.

Chernobyl ‘shows insect decline’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7949314.stm
Page last updated at 00:08 GMT, Wednesday, 18 March 2009

Chernobyl ‘shows insect decline’
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News

Chernobyl is largely human-free but still contaminated with radiation

Two decades after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, radiation is still causing a reduction in the numbers of insects and spiders.

According to researchers working in the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, there is a “strong signal of decline associated with the contamination”.

The team found that bumblebees, butterflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies and spiders were affected.

They report their findings in the journal Biology Letters.

Professor Timothy Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, and Dr Anders Moller from the University of Paris-Sud worked together on the project.

The two researchers previously published findings that low-level radiation in the area has a negative impact on bird populations.

“We wanted to expand the range of our coverage to include insects, mammals and plants,” said Professor Mousseau. “This study is the next in the series.”

Ghost zone

Professor Mousseau has been working for almost a decade in the exclusion zone. This is the contaminated area surrounding the plant that was evacuated after the explosion, that remains effectively free of modern human habitation.

The team counted insects and spider webs in the ‘unique’ exclusion zone

For this study they used what Mousseau described as “standard ecological techniques” – plotting “line transects” through selected areas, and counting the numbers of insects and spiders webs they found along that line.

At the same time, the researchers carried hand-held GPS units and dosimeters to monitor radiation levels.

“We took transects through contaminated areas in Chernobyl, contaminated land in Belarus, and in areas free of contamination.

“What we found was the same basic pattern throughout these areas – the numbers of organisms declined with increasing contamination.”

According to Professor Mousseau, this technique of counting organisms is “particularly sensitive” because it can account for the changing pattern of contamination across the zone.

“We can compare relatively clean areas to the more contaminated ones,” he explained.

Thriving or dying?

But some researchers have challenged the study, claiming that the lack of human activity in the exclusion zone has been beneficial for wildlife.

Dr Sergii Gashchak, a researcher at the Chornobyl Center in Ukraine, dismissed the findings. He said that he drew “opposite conclusions” from the same data the team collected on birds.

“Wildlife really thrives in Chernobyl area – due to the low level of [human] influence,” Dr Gashchak told BBC News.

“All life appeared and developed under the influence of radiation, so mechanisms of resistance and recovery evolved to survive in those conditions,” he continued.

Chernobyl offers a unique opportunity to explore the potential risks of this contamination
Timothy Mousseau
University of South Carolina

“After the accident, radiation impacts exceeded the capabilities of organisms. But 10 years after the accident, the dose rates dropped by 100 to 1,000 times.”

Professor Mousseau responded that his aim is to use the site to discover the true ecological effects of radiation contamination.

“The verdict is still out concerning the long-term consequences of mutagenic contaminants in the environment,” he said.

“Long-term studies of the Chernobyl ecosystem offer a unique opportunity to explore these potential risks that should not be missed.”

Badgers to be given anti-TB jabs

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Page last updated at 13:01 GMT, Thursday, 19 March 2009

Badgers to be given anti-TB jabs

Badgers have been blamed for the spread of TB in cattle

Badgers in the wild will be vaccinated against bovine tuberculosis for the first time next year.

The vaccine will be tested in six areas in England where cattle are badly affected by the disease.

The project, announced by Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, is aimed at assessing the practicality of injecting the animals.

Farmers and vets will be among those trained in how to trap badgers in metal cages and then inject them.

The animals will be marked to reduce the risk they are vaccinated more than once.

It can only be seen as one of the tools in the box
National Farmers’ Union

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will begin to sign up and train participants later this year. Vaccination is expected to start in summer 2010 and continue for at least five years.

This will be the first practical use of a vaccine outside research trials. It is the latest stage in Defra’s plan to focus on vaccination rather than culling to tackle bovine TB in England’s badger population.

‘Dithering’

Badgers are blamed by many farmers for spreading the disease which affects cattle. The worst areas are in the south west and west of England, as well as Wales.

The government has been accused of ‘dithering’ by the Conservatives, who are calling for a targeted cull of infected badgers.

Shadow agriculture minister Jim Paice condemned the idea of being willing to wait five years while vaccines are tested.

Mr Paice said: “By then every county could be infected and the number of cattle slaughtered could easily exceed 50,000 a year. Bovine TB is spreading from county to county at enormous cost to both farmers and taxpayers who are ultimately footing the bill.”

Contrasting approach

Mr Benn said: “Developing an effective vaccine for bovine TB is only half the challenge. The other is to deploy it effectively. This project will help us do that. As such it marks real progress in our fight against this terrible disease.”

The precise areas for the trials will be announced later this year after consultation with the farming industry and other interested groups.

Defra’s approach contrasts with that of the Welsh Assembly Government, which announced last year that in principle it favoured a large-scale badger cull as part of a package of measures against bovine TB.

‘Step forward’

The Welsh Assembly Government is expected to announce further details of its plans by the end of the month.

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) welcomed the announcement as “a good step forward”. But the union warned “there are major hurdles to overcome in terms of practicality, cost and legislation”.

The west and south-west of England and Wales are the worst affected areas

The NFU spokesman added: “Vaccination on its own will not stem the progression of bovine TB. It can only be seen as one of the tools in the box – a component of a multi-faceted approach to TB eradication.”

The move has also been welcomed by the Badger Trust, a charity which promotes the welfare of badgers and argues that it is cattle themselves which mainly transmit the disease.

The Trust’s chairman David Williams said: “We hope that this vaccine will give badgers further protection from bovine TB, which continues to be spread by cattle because the TB testing regime is inadequately enforced.”