More: Badgers and cattle seldom meet, says new study (5th August 2016)Professor Christl Donnelly, co-author from the School of Public Health at Imperial added: "This study gives us important insights into the behaviours underpinning the transmission of tuberculosis between badgers and cattle."
Having identified the environment as the likely location of transmission, scientists are now conducting the next phase of research to identify where in the environment the disease bacteria are concentrated and encountered by badgers and cattle.
The study is "Badgers prefer cattle pasture but avoid cattle: implications for bovine tuberculosis control" by R. Woodroffe et al, and is published in Ecology Letters.
Hopefully, this research will pave the way for a more sensible (and effective) approach to stopping the spread of this form of tuberculosis than the badger culls.