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.
I write further to Sooty’s comments and Mark’s previous ‘position statement’ regarding bTB.
In Mark’s previous blog entry about bTB he repeated what RSPB had previously stated was its position. He also (re-)stated what he currently “believes” to be scientifically ‘true’.
Importantly - Mark has quite rightly identified the subject of ‘spoliotypes and spoliotyping’ – which deals with the specific types or strains of bTB – and has indicated that he might even submit a blog entry on the subject.
Information about the spread of bTb, as shown by the spoligotypes in slaughtered reactor cattle, compared with indigenous badgers has been undertaken, but rarely used.
If cattle-to-cattle transmission was a serious contender for bTb spread, then the cattle spoligotype map of GB would look like a child's kaleidoscope - different colours all over the country.
But this is not the case, and work done on this is available at http://.www.mbovis.org
A report (a SID 5 / Project code SE3020) which delved into the spoligotype map of GB, describes its results thus:
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"In general the spoligotype …. obtained from badger isolates 1972 -1976 were the same as those observed in the same geographical areas today. This suggests that the geographical clustering of strains has not changed since the first isolation of M.bovis from badgers over thirty years ago."
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The authors describe this data "as in sharp contrast to the rapid movement of strains” observed in positive post-movement tests on re-stocked herds after FMD.
Exactly.
These were found by the skin test and slaughtered out; end of story.
The eleven main spoligotypes which have remained "in their geographical areas" are summarised below, adding geographical areas i.e 'shared border' counties together.
Type 9 isolated in 44% Cornwall/Devon 20% Dyfed
Type 17 " 66% Here /Worcs / Glos.
Type 21 " 74% Somerset / Avon
Type 35 " 77% Here / Worcs /Shrops.
Type 10 " 79% Glos.
Type 25 " 79% Staffs / Derbys.
Type 22 " 84% Gwent / Here / Worcs
Type 15 " 89% Cornwall
Type 11 " 93% Devon / Somerset
Type 12 " 94% Cornwall
Type 20 " 95% Cornwall
Thus up to 95 percent of slaughtered reactor cattle were subsequently found to have contracted a strain of bTb of the spoligotype indigenous to its badgery home.
So Mark’s and RSPB’s fears about cattle-to-cattle transmission are proved to be wrong.
If Mark / RSPB would care to check these facts we could be on our way to convincing the RSPB that one of its fears is unfounded – then we can take the others one by one. So far so good?
Two comments on the blog that seem very difficult to go forward with is that the money is not in livestock farming to pay for culling,what I am sure of is that individual farmers with herds affected by B T B could and would be pleased to do it free.Secondly think it nearly impossible to improve on cattle movements except to stop them altogether which is probably not feasible.How they think livestock farmers with what seem like average incomes of between 6 thousand pounds and 18 thousand pounds probably less than the average wage can afford to pay for culling Badgers beats me.