Badger cull photography award

I’m delighted to announce that these six  images have won the documentary award in this year’s British wildlife photography awards. My motivation in taking this set of photos is to further highlight both what has happened in the past with the English badger cull and the current situation. As such I’m making these images available to use free of charge for all media and anybody who wants to help raise awareness of this issue which is one of the biggest wildlife crimes ever committed in England and funded by the British taxpayer to the tune of over £60 million. Low res images for online use can be taken direct from this page (please credit ‘Ian Wood’) If you need high res copies for printed use and for all media enquiries please contact me here. Both myself and Nigel Palmer CEO of badger trust are available for interviews and there is a quote from both of us at the bottom of this page.

Badger cull current situation 

As of end of January 2026 the government has finally agreed to end the badger cull apart from one license in Cumbria that they claim is still needed to gather more data. The government has had well in excess of a decade to gather data and hardly any of the badgers slaughtered in the cull were even tested to find out if they had bovine TB. We are calling on the government to end this culling license with immediate effect. The policy to vaccinate badgers might be good for the badgers but the science says that it won’t do much to stop the spread of bovine TB as 94% is cattle to cattle transmission. We are calling on the government to stop goatscaping badgers and properly implement measures to control this disease. Wales – which has never had a badger cull – has managed to reduce rates of bovine TB by 40% by implementing better testing procedures of cattle, improved farm hygiene and more control over cattle movement. The government’s mishandling of bovine TB has been a tragedy for dairy farmers as well as badgers.

Information about each photo

Image 1: A protester outside Defra’s offices, London holding a sign saying “I am innocent.” Badgers have often been blamed for spreading bovine TB in England, despite evidence showing that around 94% of transmission occurs between cattle.

Image 2: Man with a gun and a night scope. High-powered night scopes have been used in the badger cull, making it easy to find animals over large areas. Nearly a quarter of a million badgers have been shot using this technology.

Image 3: Impossible to miss. During the cull, the goal was to shoot about 70% of badgers in each licensed area. However, someone who worked on the cull told me that every badger they found was killed. There was a bounty for each badger, as license holders were paid for every animal they killed.

Image 4: Killing Fields. Almost 250,000 badgers have been killed in the cull, and most were never even tested to see if they had bovine TB

Image 5: Frozen out. Bovine TB has been devastating for dairy farmers, with many cows lost over the years. But the answer is not to kill badgers on a large scale, which has cost British taxpayers over £60 million. Better testing, stricter controls on cattle movement, and improved farm hygiene have all been shown to reduce bTB without killing badgers. Wales has never had a badger cull and has reduced rates of bTB by 40% using these methods.

Image 6: Barn storming. Badgers have been part of the British landscape for generations.There is so much misinformation about their impact on hedgehogs and ground-nesting birds, but badgers play an important role in the ecosystem. They are vital to soil structure and the biodiversity of the ecosystems that they live in.

Quotes from Ian Wood and Nigel Palmer CEO of badger trust

“The badger cull is one of the biggest wildlife crimes ever committed in England and the fact that the slaughter of nearly a 1/4 million badgers has been paid for by the British taxpayer is a disgrace. But this has also been a tragedy for England’s dairy farmers with about 20,000 cattle killed each year, again paid for by the taxpayer. My hope is that this award will further highlight this issue and that the badger cull will never be allowed to happen again.” Ian Wood

“They say that the Cumbria  license is needed to collect more data, which is surprising since the government has already said that badger culling is ineffective. So why keep one license? Whilst we  support vaccinating badgers to protect them from Bovine TB, this is not the answer for stopping Bovine TB in cows. The real solution is better cattle testing, less cattle movement, and improved farm biosecurity and hygiene. We worry that focusing on badger vaccination puts the blame on badgers. Instead, this is a chance to get rid of Bovine TB through a science-led policy and make sure there will never be a return to inhumane and ineffective badger culls.” Nigel Palmer CEO Badger Trust.