Badgers need your help!

Ian,well done good information there,what we must not forget that however innocent Badgers and perhaps other wildlife are the problem will not go away until those species are clean as well as the cattle.If as the EU say as I understand it the present TB cattle test misses some with the disease probably the only way to clean it up is for cattle and Badger vaccination.

Sooty, I think you are right.  We need vaccination and probably for both cattle and badgers.  One of the big flaws of the proposed cull is that the research showed that it will actually increase the proportion of badgers that have TB.  We all should be pressing for healthy badgers and healthy cattle.

I've signed the petition and joined Save Me!

MPs vote overwhelmingly against the badger cull.

 147 votes to 28

FABULOUS! SIMPLY FABULOUS! Thanks Tiger :)))

Not a binding outcome but lets hope work can now be put into preventing TB in both Cattle and Badgers.

The well respected Professor David Norman has put an entry on Mark Avery's blog.  In it he compares the development of foot and mouth in the 60's (I remember that) when it moved 100 miles in 6 months and in 2001 when it moved hundreds of miles in days apparently down to cattle movements.

Bob,think he means well but I would say only slightly relevant as the 60s outbreak was contained in a small area quickly as was reported quickly and zone created stopping movement.The 2001 outbreak was such a disaster because simply the culprits on farm where it started did not follow the law and boil swill ,worse they hid the fact that the farm had F and M  and probably sold stock with it and spread to other animals and farms before being notified,of course what Professor D avid Norman does not mention is the fact that F and M is so many times contagious than T B.

If the T B test was accurate of course T B should not be spread by cattle movements at all which absolves all responsible farmers of any blame in spreading the disease.  

After waiting nearly two weeks for a reply from the HQ of the RSPCA in Horsham, I have at last received a reply, which is this.

Thank you for your enquiry, we passed your request on to one of our wildlife specialists, here is his reply:

Apologies for the delay in replying but, as I hope you will appreciate, we have been rather busy regarding badgers and bovine TB and the situation has been evolving rapidly.

We note your suggestion but, to date, this is not a route we have chosen to go down although we have been encouraging the use of vaccination. Additionally, and partly as a result of our response during the consultations, Defra established a Vaccination Fund for England : archive.defra.gov.uk/.../badger-vaccination-fund.pdf with up to £250,000 available each year to support and encourage badger vaccination. It is not clear what take up of these funds there has been to date because there continues to be a lot of negative messaging regarding vaccination from ministers and some in the farming industry and the veterinary profession.

However, some wildlife organisations which own land such as the National Trust, the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB have started badger vaccination programmes and some have appeals linked to that.

Thank you once again for your concern and for your patience.

Kind regards

RSPCA Advice Team