Badgers need your help!

Sooty,

         The report appears to be saying that the infection circulates in BOTH badgers and cattle within a local area but that cattle movements are the main cause of transmission into new areas. Badger movements may bring the infection into adjacent areas but they are unlikely to travel long distances.  One of the practical arguments against a cull is that it will encourage more movement of badgers into cleared territories and could increase the spread of infection.

If a cow has been tested up to 2 months before movement it is perfectly possible that she could have been infected since then or even carrying an early infection which would not have shown up at the time of the test.   The fact that farmers experience repeated test failures but eventually clear the infection suggests to me that badger to cattle transmission may introduce bTB to a herd but that it circulates more readily between herd members.  

If we could identify badger setts with high levels of infections I would not oppose a limited cull of those animals alongside vaccination of neighbouring populations but I feel the present proposal is indiscriminate and will have little benefit.        

Sooty.  Most people would agree that badgers can transmit TB, but equally cattle to cattle is still recognised as an important route.  One thing that almost everyone agrees with is that the cattle skin test is not perfect.  It doesn’t pick up every animal that has TB.  If the testing and movement restrictions were watertight it is surprising that the Government is continually looking to improve the system.

You may want to check on the distribution of badgers in Scotland.  The Handbook of British Mammals produced in 1964 and revised in 1977 states that badgers were present in most of Scotland.

My colleagues have just posted an interesting bloglet here which is well worth a read, especially the link to the article here

Cattle farmers without bTB outside of the cull zones must be massively worried, if this cull ever does go ahead, hopefully it won't, the badgers forced to move as a result of peturbation could bring the disease into their herds. It's a massive risk to take and one that this government seems very happy to take.

Perhaps the potential badger cull is starting to achieve something.  For too long we have been faced with those saying badgers are totally to blame and those saying badgers are innocent and it is totally down to Farmers.  Of course the answer is somewhere in the middle.  Recently I have started to see excellent comments emerging such as from HilaryJ on here and Dave Purser on your link.  

Think Dave Purser makes some valid points in his opinion.The big problem he fails to have answer to is the fact that now it is no good just talking about bio-security and one or two other things as we have massive BTB in both cattle and Badgers and we now need to clear it up as much for the Badgers benefit as for the cattle and farmers benefit.

Doubt much wrong with the TB test on farms as it has been going for at least half a century I believe and in the 80s with this test we got down to well below 1,000 cattle culled a year and logic tells me that if the test was missing reactors then it would have spread on farms and losses would have been many more.As I understand it the problem with the test is the opposite in that some cattle taken as reactors are found clean on slaughter.

It appears we desperately need to use a effective vaccine on both cattle and Badgers.

Afraid I disagree that if the cattle movement controls were perfect they would not need to try and improve them,surely that is what we would like every organisation especially the Government to do as everything can always be improved even the RSPB surely try and improve things otherwise there is something wrong at the top.

I think the cattle movement restrictions are quite foolproof except for anyone willing to break the law and that is really difficult to stop,ref how many people I see on mobile while driving and think 66% of drivers admitted to speeding.

Another point of view on the internet Telegraph by Charles Moore.

The murky 21st century tale of Tommy Brock and Mr Grant.

Sooty,  I think I will refer back to my previous comment.  Let us have some sensible comments on this from BOTH sides.

In this article he complains there are 300,000 badgers but states that only a few hundred will die in the trial.  We know that if the trial goes ahead it is required that 70% of badgers are taken out.  According to Charles Moore that would indicate a very small population in West Glos and Somerset of about 500.  Clearly not correct.  

It really is about time that all commentators on this subject used facts and not made up figures. Once again not one reference to how farmers can help prevent the disease.

Bob,nowhere did I say that what he said I agreed with but certainly no worse than Lancashire Badger Trust saying amongst lots of what could only be called lots of very inaccurate statements such as in years past lots of cattle were never tested in their lifetime.

Can promise you having regularly been struggling with cattle TB testing for close on half a century that is so untrue.Badger trusts peddle so many inaccurate things on cattle that they must know are not true.

Of course everyone makes mistakes but they would have the correct information at their fingertips and is not one isolated case.

Why doesn't the Badger trust put pressure on the Government by saying they will have a fund raising for proposed vaccination of Badgers and every £ they raise ask for equal amount or more from Government as they will save such a lot in compensation for farmers in the future if BTB is beaten.

In my opinion they are so negative just more or less petition to stop the cull.Not really pushing any alternative.

Badger Trust also say make use on farms of thick hedges to stop Badgers,just about the craziest thing anyone could think up,their is no hedge a Badger will not get through.

155,322

Maybe the Badger trust needs your membership even more as their income is said to be £120,000 whereas if all petition signatures joined it would be by my calculation if correct roughly £3.9 million.

One of the things that the Badger Trust has got right is in its demolition of the Government's claim that it wants to see 'healthy badgers and healthy cattle'.  This is nothing more than a loose political sound bite.  So far it has been repeated by David Cameron, Owen Paterson and two separate Tory MPs on Newsnight.  Yes, I think we should all be aiming to get healthy badgers and healthy cattle but what will the cull actually achieve in this respect?  Many leading scientists agree it will do little for addressing TB in cattle - see www.guardian.co.uk/.../letters-observer.  For badgers the situation is even clearer - culled badgers will be in the ultimate state of bad health i.e. dead, whether they had TB or not.  But  what about the remaining badgers, will they be healthier? - Well no they won't!  The detailed culling trials showed that the prevalence of TB in the surviving badger population actually increases.  So after a cull a greater proportion of the badger population will have the disease.

If the Government are serious about wanting healthy badgers and healthy cattle they would scrap this unscientific, contentious and devisive cull and get behind a concerted vaccination in badgers now and in cattle as soon as they can persuade the EU to allow it in cattle.