As you may be aware, the Badger Trust recently lost its appeal against the judgment given by Lord Justice Ouseley in July in respect of the Judicial Review made against the Government’s decision to hold a pilot trial of the free-shooting of badgers in parts of Somerset and Gloucestershire. This is clearly not the outcome they were hoping for. If, like me you feel passionate about this and would like to add your voice to the petition to get this cull stopped, then please click on the link below:http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38257
For more information, do take a look at the Badger Trust website hereClaire
BTB has been present on the Isle of Man. That is a fact. There are no Badgers on the Isle of Man, that is also a fact.
I don't buy it quite frankly. They want a cheap solution they can implement. It's pretty clear to me they're pushing this even though pretty much all the scientific evidence and opinions of those much more enlightened than me on the subject suggest it's a bad idea. Cattle are the main cause of BTB, not badgers.
Everything I've researched so far leads me to believe the scapegoat analogy and I'll stand by it.
Would you have this wonderful natural part of our wildlife wiped from the face of the country?
Thanks for your comments everyone, this is a hugely emotive issue with lot's of potential for disagreement, please feel free to continue to debate this in a respectful and polite manner.
We have just released a statement about a current development with regards to badgers on our reserves and vaccination, see here for more details.
Warden Intern at Otmoor.
Ian,people who think it is farmers fault only have to look at the rules to see they are so strict that it is most unlikely that they are the cause but as shown if Sunrider will not look and study them they cannot come to a sensible conclusion.of course some countrys have BTB without badgers but they are in a minority and have not the amount of disease we have.No one ever seems to consider the approx half a million cattle slaughtered from this cause over the last decade and a half.
Some very interesting reading here. (Particularly as regards slaughter numbers and reasons for the slaughter!)
"All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)
My photos on Flickr
Marjus,cannot get link to work will try and put in manually
Marjus,not working
Marjus,only way I can get it to work and get a graph is to manually print in google bar "graph bovine tuberculosis total cattle slaughtered GB annually1978-2008 press enter then click on controlling bovine TB in the UK".there is a graph that if you click on it becomes much larger,I believe these are official DEFRA figures not one lot picked out specially.They show how the disease has gone like wildfire since
culling was stopped.
I am not pro culling but if the vaccine works then there needs to be pressure to vaccinate every badger in the country and clear this disease up.
Of course there are lots of reasons cattle are culled just the same as all animals pets included die from lots of different things and badger road casualties are absolutely staggering in those areas where there are a lot,on a recent car journey there were 20 casualties in 40 miles.point being it is irrelevant badger people talking about other reasons cattle have to be culled for humane reasons,it would not be right for instance to keep a cow that could not be cured of lameness.
Interesting!
The scientist whose research is being cited by the government to justify its plan to cull badgers in England has described the scheme as "crazy".
He too (Lord Krebs) says "I would go down the vaccination and biosecurity route rather than this crazy scheme that may deliver very small advantage, may deliver none. And it's very hard to see how Defra are going to collect the crucial data to assess whether it's worth going ahead with free shooting at all," he said.
You can read the article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19623931 I don't seem to be able to post links to anything so if you copy and paste it into your browser, or go to the BBC news website.
Signed the petition. we saw it was on Channel 4 news.
J
For those that can't see the link (works fine for me).
Bovine TB or Mycobacterium bovis or bovine tubercle bacillus is part of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. The organism is carried by many animals including deer, cats, dogs, pigs, alpacas, sheep and of course cattle . Mycobacterium bovis is an aerobic bacterium and the cause of TB in cattle . Bovine TB can jump the species barrier and cause tuberculosis in humans and this is where the problem has historically been. In the 1930's and 40's it was responsible for over 50,000 cases a year and 2500 deaths annually. By 1960 all herds had been tested twice for TB and all animals which had tested positive, or 'reactors', were slaughtered and it became a notifiable disease. The government introduced compulsory cattle testing and devised compensation programme for all destroyed cattle. In the last decade human contraction of Tb from animals has seen only handful of cases.
Pasteurisation of milk, immunisation and healthy diet has seen the number of cases reduce dramatically over the last 100 years and in most circles it is consider no longer a human concern. Farming practices have changed and food has become cheaper. Ironically this intensive farming leads to poor condition for cattle causing poor health and could itself be contributing to the increase in bovine TB in herds.
For the farmers it is a different issue . Cattle with Bovine Tb cannot be moved and cannot be sold in Europe causing great financial strain on farmers. Whilst vaccination for BCG are available for cattle there is currently no approved test to differentiate between wild Tb and vaccinated TB although one has been researched. The Diva Test.
It should be noted cattle with bTB lesions do routinely and legitimately enter the food chain .
The Krebs Review on Bovine TB in Cattle and Badgers reported in 1997 and concluded that despite there being “compelling” evidence that badgers were involved in transmitting infection to cattle, the development of a control policy was made difficult because the effectiveness of badger culling could not be quantified with the data available. It therefore recommended that a large-scale field trial - the Randomised Badger Culling Trial be set up to quantify the impact of culling badgers on incidence of TB in cattle, and to determine the effectiveness of strategies to reduce the risk of a TB cattle herd breakdown.
The Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB (ISG), which included several members of the Krebs Review group, was formed in 1998 to plan and subsequently provide independent oversight of the RBCT. It also provided advice on the content and direction of Defra‟s (then MAFF‟s) TB research programme. The ISG published their Final Report on 18 June 2007. This trial slaughtered 9818. It stated that "culling Badgers would have no meaningful effect on bovine TB in cattle " . You may have expected that to be the end of culling badgers however..........
On the 19th July 2011 Caroline Spelman announced that the government would carry out two pilot badger culls in the areas shows below. This was part of the governments bovine TB eradication program.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN :-
Landowners who wish to cull badgers would need to apply for a licence from Natural England
The trials will assess the humaneness, efficacy and safety of the free shooting of badgers.
Groups of qualified landowners under licence will be able to shoot badgers at night with a high velocity rifle.
70 % of the badgers in any trial area must be slaughtered.
Each trial area must be at least 150 sq.km
Below is a graph showing the amount of cattle slaughtered for various reason bTb is not the biggest issue.
1. BTB poses negligible risk to human health in the UK. The current policy has a greater adverse effect on cattle welfare than the disease could.2. The existing test and cull regime would take decades to achieve OTF status, if it ever did, whatever is done or not done to badgers.3. The “skin test” is only suitable as a herd test. It misses far too many cattle (and condemns too many falsely) to be very effective in finding infected individuals and removing them from the herd.4. It is widely said that countries which have achieved OTF status have addressed any wildlife reservoir. It is conveniently forgotten (by those wanting to slaughter wildlife) that the two examples they choose most often, Australia and USA, have used the skin test as a herd test – if one reactor is found the whole herd, however large, is slaughtered.5. Most importantly cattle vaccination must be allowed. It could be used alone or alongside any other policies and methods. The vaccine and the accompanying test could be licensed this year with the political will.6. Only EU law prevents cattle vaccination, and EU law over rules ours. Defra claim that it would take 5 years to change. They have been saying this for as long as anyone can remember and there is little evidence of efforts to actually change it. Other authorities say it could be changed very quickly. The French and Italians would probably just ignore it. It is intolerable that we cannot use vaccines to protect our cattle and the interests of our farmers against BTB. The reason for the EU prohibition, interference with the skin test, is no longer relevant as a different test would be used on vaccinated cattle.