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.由于生物系统本身具有复杂性，野生动物管理干预措施有时会产生非预期的负面后果。例如，通过捕杀欧亚獾（Meles meles）来控制牛结核病（bovine tuberculosis，TB）的举措，在部分情境下反而无意间提升了牛群感染结核病的风险。这类有害效应的产生，是因为捕杀行为会显著改变獾的移动行为，进而增加了病原体在獾之间以及獾向牛群的传播概率。 近期有研究提出，另一种结核病管理手段——使用卡介苗（Bacillus Calmette Guerin）对獾进行免疫接种，或许也会引发类似的行为改变，进而对牛群产生类似的有害影响。为此，我们依托一项已有的监测项目展开研究：该项目在英国西南部的4处研究区域内，对54只佩戴GPS项圈的獾进行了跟踪监测，以此探究免疫接种或实施疫苗接种所需的活体诱捕，是否会对獾的移动行为产生影响。 我们未检测到免疫接种或诱捕行为对獾的月度家域面积、夜间移动距离，或是闯入邻域的频次存在显著影响。免疫接种对獾家域面积的估算效应[下降2%，95%置信区间（CI）为下降18%至上升17%]在统计学上不显著，但其效应大小显著小于大范围捕杀（上升180%，95% CI为70%~362%；P < 0·001）和局部捕杀（上升74%，95% CI为4%~191%；P = 0·038）所对应的效应。 研究综合与应用：与捕杀手段不同，对獾进行活体诱捕与免疫接种并未显著改变其移动行为，这为“免疫接种可对牛结核病防控产生积极作用”的观点提供了信心支撑。本研究也展示了如何利用已有的监测项目，来评估野生动物管理措施可能存在的负面效应。