Cull will be a 'black day for badgers' says RSPCA (From Worcester News)
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Cull will be a 'black day for badgers' says RSPCA
4:30pm Wednesday 20th July 2011 in News
TB: A badger cull is "absolutely necessary"
THE chairman of the Worcestershire branch of the National Farmer’s Union has welcomed a Government announcement that it will introduce a major badger cull in England to tackle TB in cattle.
Farmer Tim Jones said the decision was “regrettable but absolutely necessary” to control bovine TB.
Mr Jones, who farms near Tenbury Wells, said the disease was the largest threat facing the beef and dairy sectors and action over bovine TB was long overdue.
He said: “A government decision of badger control is regrettable but absolutely necessary to control bovine tuberculosis.
“This disease is destroying family businesses and seeing cattle slaughtered unnecessarily, we want to see a healthy countryside for cattle and badgers. The disease is the villain here – not farming or badgers.”
Defra – the government agriculture department – said nearly 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in England last year because of bovine TB, which cost the country £90 million. The problem is particularly bad in west and south-west England.
As we reported back in April, cattle farmer Martyn Cook saw his fifth herd infected. Mr Cook had his 268 cattle tested on the farm at Colles Place, near Knightwick, only to find 50 were carrying bovine TB and had to be slaughtered.
Consultations will be carried out before any mass cull is allowed but the Government plans to carry out a pilot in two areas where it is thought that about 1,000-1,500 badgers would be culled over four years. A nine-week stakeholder consultation on its delivery will now begin.
If found to be effective and humane, the policy could be introduced across England.
But the announcement was branded as a “black day for badgers” by the RSPCA, which claims the scientific case to support the mass slaughter of badgers had not been made.
The RSPCA said vaccination of badgers, increased levels of testing, improved biosecurity and stricter controls on the movement of cattle were more effective ways of eradicating bovine TB for good.
Colin Booty, senior scientist for the RSPCA, said: “This cull will contribute little or nothing to the long-term goal of eradicating TB nationally. Instead it will wipe out huge numbers of this much loved species, including many animals which are healthy.”
Comments(8)
Grumbleweed Connection
says...
4:47pm Wed 20 Jul 11
My neighbour has a large herd of cattle. I leave food out for badgers every night and it is always cleared by the morning. I have spent many happy hours watching the parents arrive with youngsters to sample the cuisine. It is interesting that my neighbour's herd has never had a positive TB test, yet at present, it shares its environment with six badgers.
I challenge DEFRA to provide the scientific proof that bovine TB is definitively sourced from badgers.
Jabbadad
says...
4:54pm Wed 20 Jul 11
It is quite definite that the reasons for cattle being slaughtered by their thousands is deeply connected to Badgers and Bovine TB.
Of course the RSPCA cannot be seen supporting a cull, it would upset those who donate their monies to the animal causes more than to human ones.
And is a Badgers life more important than a cows?
Ballymoss
says...
5:35pm Wed 20 Jul 11
Grumbleweed Connection
says...
7:22pm Wed 20 Jul 11
Jabbadad, I respect your opinion. It is a fact that some cattle, some badgers and other mammals carry the Mycobacterium Bovis, but the scientific data relating to the transmission of the bacteria from badgers to cattle are lacking.
DEFRA commissioned a report from The Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB, which conceded that badgers did make a contribution to the spread of bovine TB, but the quantitative evidence was somewhat questionable, indeed non-existent. The study went on to conclude, “careful evaluation of our own and others’ data indicates that badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain. Indeed, some policies under consideration are likely to make matters worse rather than better. Second, weaknesses in cattle testing regimes mean that cattle themselves contribute significantly to the persistence and spread of disease in all areas where TB occurs, and in some parts of Britain are likely to be the main source of infection. Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone." .
In a more recent paper, on Trends in Microbiology, Paul and David Torgerson argued that “bovine tuberculosis is a negligible public health problem in the UK, providing milk is pasteurised. Bovine TB is very rarely spread by aerosol from cattle to humans. Therefore, the bovine tuberculosis control programme in the UK in its present form is a misallocation of resources and provides no benefit to society. Indeed there is even very little evidence of a positive cost benefit to the livestock industry, as few studies have been undertaken on the direct costs of bovine TB to animal production. Milk pasteurisation was the single public health intervention that prevented the transmission of bovine TB to humans and there is no justification for the present test and cull policy in the UK.”.
It is my understanding that culled cattle are allowed to enter the food chain, so the ‘destruction of livelihoods’ seems somewhat exaggerated, and I suspect some compensation is applicable? Culling badgers may not the solution to the problem. Mindful of the conclusions of the (limited) research, I am not convinced that a badger cull is justified.
New Kid on the Block
says...
10:01pm Wed 20 Jul 11
Trouble is making an effective vaccine is not easy. Badgers are exposed to soil bacteria that are similar enough to TB to stop the current TB vaccine from working. If you vaccinate cows they will test as having been exposed to TB and under the current system will be destroyed.
Hopefully someone will soon be clever enough to solve this problem.
Grumbleweed Connection
says...
10:55pm Wed 20 Jul 11
Grumbleweed Connection
says...
8:46am Thu 21 Jul 11
…
“Bovine TB expert slams futility of badger cull.
Jonathan Riley
Tuesday 12 July 2011 10:34
The scientist who devised the randomised badger culling trial has claimed a badger cull would do little to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle.
Professor John Krebs, now Lord Krebs, said that culling was not "an effective policy".
"If you cull intensively for at least four years, you will have a net benefit of reducing TB in cattle of 12% to 16%," he said.
"So you leave 85% of the problem still there, and having gone to a huge amount of trouble to kill a huge number of badgers, it just doesn't seem to me to be an effective way of dealing with the disease."
Lord Krebs said a better option would be to try to develop a vaccine in the long term, and in the short term to use better "biosecurity" measures to prevent cattle from coming into contact with badgers and other sources of the disease, and to prevent them passing it to each other.
"To me the story is pretty straightforward." he said. "If you've got a measure that affects 15% of the problem, then you don't focus on that. You focus on something else."
………
I cannot understand why DEFRA and the government are acting to please the farming lobby, when the evidence clearly suggests that a cull is unlikely to have the desired effect. Krebs was interviewed with a representative from the NFU on this morning’s ‘Today’ programme. The NFU argument did not stand up to scrutiny. Krebs reiterated the facts as above.
I challenge anyone from the government or DEFRA to provide sound evidence which justifies the commencement of this cull.
and678
says...
3:57pm Tue 26 Jul 11
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