Badgers - RSPB latest response to todays announcement

Unknown said:

just supposing Mother Nature decided "I've had enough, time for the animals to fight back"

Big Robbo 27, have to say my immediate reaction is with you. I am not an activist or a farmer, but I think we sometimes take ineffective routes to solve problems (usually because they are cheaper than more effective methods). There seem to be so many arguments for and against the badger cull, it can't be a clear cut case. And if there is a shred of doubt, why would we want to willfully kill these creatures? We should be pushing for vaccination of cattle. Cattle are kept for our convenience so we can eat meat. Let everyone who eats the meat pay for the vaccination programme (here speaks a vegetarian!). Badgers are wild and have a right to our support and protection.

oops, off my soap box now!

Unknown said:

just supposing Mother Nature decided "I've had enough, time for the animals to fight back"

Big Robbo 27, have to say my immediate reaction is with you. I am not an activist or a farmer, but I think we sometimes take ineffective routes to solve problems (usually because they are cheaper than more effective methods). There seem to be so many arguments for and against the badger cull, it can't be a clear cut case. And if there is a shred of doubt, why would we want to willfully kill these creatures? We should be pushing for vaccination of cattle. Cattle are kept for our convenience so we can eat meat. Let everyone who eats the meat pay for the vaccination programme (here speaks a vegetarian!). Badgers are wild and have a right to our support and protection.

oops, off my soap box now!

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I'm with you all the way Sarah. It's always the wild creatures that have to pay !!

Feed The Birds....not the cats!!!!

I know....my spelling's crap !!

Unknown said:

I have sat on a wooden five bar gate with my friend Gemma on her dads farm in Shropshire watching a family of badgers turning over dry cow pats for grubs and worms now whats to say that its the cattle infecting the badgers?

@ Big Robbo 27 ~ Take a look at the new "Planet of the Apes" film out in August where the apes take control.

Exactly Chris.

I'm taking my Daughter to see the film during the school holidays, seen the trailer and it looks great ;-)

Well scientists and papers say a effective vaccine not available until 2020 and the present one only lasts a year so has to be repeated every year and of course will not be effective on those already infected badgers but of course when surveys are done all the evidence is not supplied.

Far more badgers are road casulties than would have been culled if government had not given in at the end of last century and we would by now have clean badgers and clean herds of cattle,doing nothing is not a option.

Strange no one ever mentions the massive numbers of badger casulties on roads.

B T B at the moment is really ruining lots of farmers lives and businesses,costing tax payers serious millions of £s and more badgers infected every day and the problem gets worse and worse.It is ridiculous that nothing is done.

I am not anti vaccine but there seems no will to do that because of cost and effectiveness.  

We cannot vaccinate cattle or no export allowed basically.

No effective vaccine untill 2020 for badgers sadly but think the worry even then is that lots would get missed.

Most farmers I would guess are not anti vaccine they do however want something done as they are having very large numbers of cattle that they are looking after being culled.

The badgers are not getting any benefits from doing nothing as more catch the disease in closenit setts every day.

This is a complete red herring put out by badger people about cull not working and badgers moving around and spreading it worse.The facts are that culling with defined boundaries works.

We were almost clear of this disease until small scale culling was stopped and graphs show how the number of cattle culled has dramatically risen over about the last 25 years.  

Just looked up the figures which are astonishing and they are that when culling stopped think it was 1997 we were having culled 4,000 a year increasing in the next 11 years with no culling to the amazing number of 40,000, probably even higher now.

Whatever anyone thinks about badgers,farmers,vaccines or culling surely no one can say it does not work.

There is of course a official graph to prove this if anyone looks up B T B.

The problem with a cull based on rubbish science is that it may well not do any good at all or, could make a bad situation even worse.  I thoroughly disapprove of a "lets try anything" approach when it involves large scale extermination of native wildlife.

Let the judicial reviews roll.......

JBNTS

Think there is plenty of instances that Ihave read about the RSPB culling things when it suits them.

JBNTS,you may consider it rubbish science but the facts are that farmers were having culls to B T B in 1997 a number of 4,000,culling stopped and 11 years later the number was 40,000 and probably even more now.

I strongly believe that those sincere people wanting nothing done are actually harming the badgers as well because I believe that if the number of cattle with the disease increased by 10 times then the number of badgers probably did as well and would think it a terrible death eventually for those infected.

We have lived side by side with badgers all our lives and we see this disease getting closer and closer all the time,eventually these badgers will become infected because no one will grasp the nettle and do something which is the most exasperating thing of all as we will end up with infected cattle and badgers in a area with a clean bill of health all our lives.  

In this case there is an alternative to culling, vaccination.  The injectable vaccine is available now and FERA the government agency have vaccinated 500 badgers in an area of Gloucestershire in the last year.  Yes, vaccination will need to be repeated over a number of years, but so will culling.  

The Government’s proposals are that culling would be repeated for four years with the aim of reducing the badger population in the cull zones by 70%.  There are several important differences between culling and vaccination.  With vaccination you leave a stable badger population in place and you reduce the incidence of TB in this population.  You make the situation for TB and for badgers better through vaccination.  

Culling is indiscriminate, healthy badgers will be culled as well as those carrying TB.  Culling stirs the badger population up and can actually increase the incidence of TB in the remaining badger population.  We don’t see that culling could be good for badgers and even an extensive cull will not make much difference to TB.  

The RSPB wants to see a positive solution and that is why we believe the Government should build on the successful trial and promote and support a co-ordinated vaccination programme.