Bielby Jon, Vial Flavie, Woodroffe Rosie, Donnelly Christl A
Institute of Zoology, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, United Kingdom.
Epi-Connect, Djupdalsvägen 7, 14251, Skogås, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2016 Oct 17;11(10):e0164618. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164618. eCollection 2016.
Bovine tuberculosis is an important disease affecting the UK livestock industry. Controlling bovine tuberculosis (TB) is made more complex by the presence of a wildlife host, the Eurasian badger, Meles meles. Repeated large-scale badger culls implemented in the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) were associated with decreased cattle risks inside the culling area, but also with increased cattle risks up to the 2km outside the culling area. Intermediate reductions in badger density, as achieved by localised reactive culling in the RBCT, significantly increased cattle TB. Using a matched-pairs case-control study design (n = 221 pairs of cattle herds), we investigated the spatial scale over which localised badger culling had its biggest impact. We found that reactive badger culling had a significant positive association with the risk of cattle TB at distances of 1-3km and 3-5km, and that no such association existed over shorter distances (<1km). These findings indicate that localised badger culls had significant negative effects, not on the land on which culling took place, but, perhaps more importantly, on adjoining lands and farms.
牛结核病是一种影响英国畜牧业的重要疾病。由于存在野生动物宿主——欧亚獾（Meles meles），牛结核病（TB）的防控变得更加复杂。随机獾捕杀试验（RBCT）中反复进行的大规模獾捕杀与捕杀区域内牛感染风险的降低有关，但也与捕杀区域外2公里范围内牛感染风险的增加有关。如RBCT中通过局部反应性捕杀实现的獾密度的适度降低，显著增加了牛结核病的发病率。我们采用配对病例对照研究设计（n = 221对牛群），调查了局部獾捕杀产生最大影响的空间尺度。我们发现，反应性獾捕杀在1 - 3公里和3 - 5公里的距离与牛结核病风险存在显著正相关，而在较短距离（<1公里）则不存在这种关联。这些发现表明，局部獾捕杀产生了显著的负面影响，不是对捕杀发生的土地，而是或许更重要的是，对毗邻的土地和农场。
