I've been at the CLA Game Fair today - always an interesting event!
I met lots of old friends and some people I wouldn't exactly class as friends but are quite interesting.
We had a small reception on our stand which was well attended - including two Defra Ministers, Mr Paice and Mr Benyon. Our Chief Executive, Mike Clarke spoke about Futurescapes and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust's relatively new Chairman, Ian Coghill, made an excellent speech which majored on collaboration. Ian would, himself, be a very easy person with whom to collaborate.
I was on a panel which was supposed to discuss whether the government's priority should be fox-hunting, badger culling or bird conservation!It was a discussion about badgers!
Because the Minister Mr Paice was on the panel we learned quite a lot - I think I helped to tease out the information. The government will consult in the autumn on the way forward. This will include a review of the science and an approach which will, it seems, include some culling, some vaccination and some controls on cattle movements. The costs of any culling will largely be met by the farming industry.
I think the RSPB can welcome this approach. This issue is very contentious - that much was clear in the room and each time I mention badgers on this blog. To set out the thinking and the science must be a good idea. I am sure that Mr Paice is keen to see some badger culling go ahead, but at least the government is sticking to its election manifesto pledge to be led by science (it seems) and at least there will be a consultation before a decision. We await the consultation with interest.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Hi Mark – you asked “could explain how cases of bTB crop up at great distances from the 'core' areas. They seem to be clear examples of where transmission is very unlikely to have been from wildlife”
Mark – it is Nature’s way to protect the badger’s Social Group – which is maintained within a geographical area with latrines / scent marking spots etc.
But it is also Nature’s way to protect the Group by excluding the very sick badgers - those known as “super-excreters” or “dispersers”.
‘Super-excreters’ are kicked out of the Group and become ‘loners’ and may even ‘hole up’ in single hole setts or even a farm building. They move on and wander from one Social Group to the next - usually fighting (and spreading TB on their way) - until they are in a 'free' uninhabited area.
These 'super-excreters' will have tuberculosis in several organs, and capable of excreting huge amounts of infectious material from all of them, which is then available to any mammal unlucky enough to trip over it.
It may be useful to point out that when a badger's kidneys are affected by TB (and this is a common site for lesions) he is capable of excreting up to 300,000 cfu (colony forming units) of bacteria in just 1ml of urine.
Badgers are incontinent and will void this indiscriminately across grassland, at 30ml a squirt. It is also used as scent markers and as a 'fright / flight' defence if startled.
About 50 bacteria is enough to provoke a 'reaction' in a tested cow. And she is shot.