Data from: Ranging behaviour of badgers Meles meles vaccinated with Bacillus Calmette Guerin

Because biological systems are complex, management interventions occasionally have unintended adverse consequences. For example, attempts to control bovine tuberculosis (TB) by culling badgers Meles meles have, under some circumstances, inadvertently increased cattle TB risks. Such harmful effects occur because culling profoundly alters badger movement behaviour, increasing pathogen transmission both between badgers and from badgers to cattle.
It has recently been suggested that another TB management tool, badger vaccination with Bacillus Calmette Guerin, might provoke similar behavioural changes and hence similar harmful effects for cattle. We therefore took advantage of an existing project, which monitored 54 GPS-collared badgers across four study sites in southwest Britain, to explore whether vaccination, or live trapping to administer vaccine, influenced badger movement behaviour.
We detected no significant effects of either vaccination or trapping on badgers’ monthly home range size, nightly distance travelled, or frequency of trespassing in neighbouring territories. The estimated effect of vaccination on badger home range size [2% reduction, 95% confidence interval (CI) 18% reduction – 17% increase] was statistically non-significant, but significantly smaller than that associated with both widespread (180% increase, 95% CI 70–362% increase; P < 0·001) and localised badger culling (74% increase, 95% CI 4–191% increase; P = 0·038).
Synthesis and applications. In contrast with culling, live trapping and vaccinating badgers did not measurably alter their movement behaviour, fuelling optimism that vaccination might contribute positively to cattle tuberculosis control. Our study illustrates how existing monitoring can be exploited to assess potentially adverse effects of wildlife management.

由于生物系统极为复杂，野生动物管理干预措施偶尔会引发非预期的不良后果。例如，为防控牛结核病（bovine tuberculosis, TB）而捕杀狗獾（Meles meles）的举措，在部分情境下竟意外升高了牛结核病的感染风险。这类有害效应的产生，是因为捕杀行为会显著改变狗獾的移动行为，进而加剧病原体在狗獾之间，以及从狗獾向牛群的传播。
近期有研究提出，另一种结核病防控工具——使用卡介苗（Bacillus Calmette Guerin）为狗獾接种疫苗，可能也会引发类似的行为改变，进而对牛群造成类似的有害影响。为此，我们利用一项已有的监测项目展开研究：该项目在英国西南部的4个研究区域内，对54只佩戴GPS项圈的狗獾进行了跟踪监测，以此探究疫苗接种或用于接种的活体捕获操作，是否会对狗獾的移动行为产生影响。
我们未检测到疫苗接种或活体捕获对狗獾的月活动家域面积、夜间移动距离，或是入侵邻域的频率存在显著影响。疫苗接种对狗獾家域面积的估计效应为[减少2%，95%置信区间（confidence interval, CI）：减少18%至增加17%]，该效应在统计学上无显著性差异，但显著低于大范围狗獾捕杀（增加180%，95% CI：70%至362%增加；P < 0·001）与局部狗獾捕杀（增加74%，95% CI：4%至191%增加；P = 0·038）所对应的效应。
综合与应用。与捕杀措施不同，活体捕获与狗獾疫苗接种并未显著改变其移动行为，这增强了人们对疫苗接种可积极助力牛结核病防控的乐观预期。本研究也阐明了如何利用已有的监测项目，评估野生动物管理措施潜在的不良影响。