Badgers - RSPB latest response to todays announcement

Basically the government need to get their butts in gear then and get their own house in order instead of shipping billions of £ abroad to bail out other country's, stop sending our troops to fight wars which have *** all to do with us, stop being the yanks little puppets, stop the immigration and close our borders !!!! Like any of thats ever going to happen....so the easy option is to kill the wildlife and put up and shut up. Our government aint worth a rub basically.

If the disease is getting closer and closer then obviously culling in the past and culling again now ain't working is it, The government HAVE to invest more in getting a vaccine programme up and running ASAP either for the badgers or the cattle, and stop dragging their heels.

No offence Sooty, I have nothing against Farmers (the majority) but culling is just the easy option and the government just toe the party line to keep farming hierarchy onside.

If nobody were prepaired to speak up for the wildlife of Britain then it would all just snowball and leave us where ?? why is mass killing always deemed as the answer.

I'll get of my soapbox now and take a deep breath and count to 10, as I've probably cheesed a few people off now ;-)

Logic tells me that if we test and cull reactor cattle, why can't we trap, test and cull reactor badgers (thus only removing those that potentially have the disease).  That trapping and testing process has taken place before.

However, I am going to sit on the fence on this one because I am not sure if the Govt's announcement has made this better or worse.  What they have announced is not a cull but a consultation period to decide how to do a 12 month cull in a couple of small areas.  Whichever side of the argument you are on it is accepted that culling will only work if it is sustained over a long period (years) and even then the edges of that area will see an increase in Tb.  The government proposals are specifically not to cull all badgers in an area but to leave a population in place.  

There are other animals out there with Tb.  Deer have it, which is why it is recommended we buy venison from an approved butcher.  Are they not as likely to pass it on and are cattle not as likely to pass it back into wildlife.

This is a subject that does need sorting and quickly but I worry that this announcement will only polarise the various camps all of which (and in this case there are more than 2 sides to the argument) produce arguments which sometimes make no sense.  To be fair we don't really know what is causing the increase in Tb numbers, we might have ideas.

I see scientists giving Govt information and then claiming that the action based on that information is wrong.

Some will say Tb is dramatically increasing whilst stats show that over the past couple of years it has decreased.

I see the farming community making statements that I know are wrong; descriptions of Tb laden badgers and cattle struggling around farms while DEFRA clearly state you can't tell which animal is a reactor until tested.  

I see badger groups making statements that cannot be justified; a failure on some groups to accept that there is a problem at all or a belief that it is all down to farmers.

For the sake of our environment, our farming community and above all my sanity why can't we just sit down like good little children and discuss it.

basically agree with what Bob and Big Robbo say(perhaps surprise for B R)both sides get exagerated by extremists and most farmers just want the problem solving,the fact that cannot be denied is that over 30 years of very little problem with very limited culling and stress very limited.11 years no culling increase from 4,000 culls a year to 40,000.

Culls never really increased all those years with very limited culling in fact I

suggest most people did not even know it was happening.

Think however if the RSPB are so pro vaccine and so sure it is the answer then any badger on there property should be vaccinated by them and then at least there badgers will be protected.

If government will not vaccinate then culling is the only option and it does work.The results people quote when it did not work were a complete shambles something like on the farm for 8 days only on farms that had reactors and other silly guidelines.When done properly it does work but I do understand peoples opposition and nowhere will anyone find where I say anything but that I like badgers,just that doing nothing has got the problem far bigger and increasingly bigger each day with culls predicted to be 70,000 by 2014 unless something done.All the time culls are going up the number of infected badgers must be increasing as well.    

michael s said:

Think however if the RSPB are so pro vaccine and so sure it is the answer then any badger on there property should be vaccinated by them and then at least there badgers will be protected.

 

I couldn't agree more with that statement, Sooty ( there's another surprise LOL)   ;-)

Love it when we agree B R.

I feel sorry when the farmers around me have to shoot their cows. the cows are beautiful charolet and I can watch them from my house. they sometimes graze in the fields in my farm, but we are arable and dont have cows of our own.

however, Ive been in the countryside stewardship scheme for some time and have left areas around my farm for wildlife. we have at least 6 badger sets and sometimes see the badgers roaminmg round near the compost heap at dusk. they make toilets all over the place and last year used the middle of the lawn for this purpose-but they are so beautiful , we just leave them to it. I couldnt bear it if we had to shoot our badgers. They are away from the cows and hopefully dont cause problems.

I would happily pay for them to be vaccinated.

they have enough trouble  avoiding cars and quite often badgers are run over near us-I hope yhey are not our badgers.

I know i am sentimantal, but living near these wondeful creatures has made me feel protective of them.

i will have to chain myself to a tree or something if anyone comes to shoot badgers on my land.

wheresmy glasses.

An excellent post "wheres my glasses"

A man after my own heart.

Hi wheres my glasses,think there are lots of farmers who have clean herds and so presumably clean badgers with exactly the same dilemna and had we not retired we certainly would have had the problem as the whole family loved having the badgers with us.The big problem for you if it comes to it must surely be the organising catching etc and why the government cannot offer help with that is beyond me.

Worst of all if nothing is done as in the past 14 wasted years your badgers and the cattle that sometimes graze your fields will eventually become infected,to think that if the spread continues at the same rate by 2020 if nothing done culls would amount to 400,000 each year probably costing the tax payer 400 million £swith all the associatedstress for farmers,cattle and more sick badgers.

Find it amazing that as we put a man on moon and lots of other thing years ago,the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan etc etc we have not the will to catch all badgers,test,cull infected ones and vaccinate and release the vaccinated ones.realise it would be a big job but the problem is the will is not there.