Badger cull - for or against? Please Please watch

Yes but how well is that going to happen? I just want people to think carefully before going down the culling route. This is supposed to be a thread on whether people are for or against culling but it seems that it is just a for thread. Never mind, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and mine is that i don't feel culling will work but if it does then I will stand corrected! But before everyone thinks I am an ignorant bunny hugger, I am a conservationist and so do have knowledge of both sides f the argument but I am going to be more biased on the badgers side!
 
What does BTB actually do to the cattle? Do they become seriously ill? Sounds stupid but I don't actually know much about the disease itself.
 
The old method of farming [1950's] was to keep cattle in sheds over winter , they were tied by their necks with chains for six months of the year., so no contact with wild animals during that time. Hay was kept in sheds, little or no maize silage was available to encourage badgers to come in to the farm steading.
Milk was 5p per pint, and every small village had a dairy for local deliveries of milk, unpasteurised. The Minister of Agriculture was a farmer, and the agricultural vote was significant.
Now milk is cheap, costs are high, profits are low and farmers have to have large herds and farm in a different way, there is no turning back. There is no Minister for Agriculture, and the fluffy bunny vote is all important.
There are far too many badgers living and breeding in the UK, and this has led to a spread of TB, a disease which was pretty much eradicated in the early 1960's.
By the way, TB is also increasing in the human population, it is more prevalent in towns, it is debilitating and infectious, a nasty disease.
There is no doubt in my mind that culling of badgers is essential, I am no fluffy bunny, and I think a small but health population is sustainable in the UK, but we won't see culling until things get worse. They are such large animals that the bodies will really need to be disposed of safely, so more practical difficulties.
 
shortstuff99 said:
Yes but how well is that going to happen? I just want people to think carefully before going down the culling route. This is supposed to be a thread on whether people are for or against culling but it seems that it is just a for thread. Never mind, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and mine is that i don't feel culling will work but if it does then I will stand corrected! But before everyone thinks I am an ignorant bunny hugger, I am a conservationist and so do have knowledge of both sides f the argument but I am going to be more biased on the badgers side!
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I dont think the decision to cull will be taken lightly at all. I do however think that those carrying out the cull need to follow strict protocols and possibly be licensed to carry it out
 
happyhacking:) said:
What does BTB actually do to the cattle? Do they become seriously ill? Sounds stupid but I don't actually know much about the disease itself.
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No the cattle dont usually show clinical signs for a long time, sometimes several years. It is even worse for farmers watching their outwardly healthy cattle being slaughtered in the prime of their life. Badgers can also live for several years with the disease continuing to spread it to others and their cubs before they die a slow and painful death riddled with puss filled lesions. There is nobody putting them out of heir misery before the disease takes hold!
 
happyhacking:) said:
I dont think the decision to cull will be taken lightly at all. I do however think that those carrying out the cull need to follow strict protocols and possibly be licensed to carry it out
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Everybody involved in the cull will be licenced, it will be done very professionally, they cannot afford any bad publicity as the autumn culls if they go ahead are only pilots and if they are not successful, the plug will be pulled. Badger carcasses will be classed as category 1 waste and will have to be incinerated (because of the disease risk). All badgers culled will be bagged and tagged and a record of numbers kept. This will be monitored by Natural England - a conservation body!

This is an industry led cull and farmers have to pay all costs involved themselves.
 
Yes I agree it is emotive! I enjoy a good debate :) but if it has affected you directly are you going to be objective? Or are you going to want an instant cure to not have to go through heartache/financial loss again?
 
happyhacking:) said:
What does BTB actually do to the cattle? Do they become seriously ill? Sounds stupid but I don't actually know much about the disease itself.
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Tuberculosis is cause by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, it affects the lungs of animals, forming tubercles or nodules, infected animals include humans. It is debilitating, and symptoms may not appear for some time after infection. It can also spread throughout the body causing unthriftiness and in some cases bone and other tissue degeneration.
Cattle badly affected are thin, and cough, though this is rarely seen nowadays as they are regularly tested for the disease, so most will be culled without showing any symptoms.
Pasteurisation of milk is at a temperature designed to kill this bacterium, so it is safe to drink, even if [unlikely] there are some bacteria in the milk from the cow. Pre-1950 unpasteurised milk was the norm, and the disease was spread from infected cows in to the human population, then transmitted from one human to another. The Ministry of Agriculture instituted a testing program in the 1950's, and unpasteurised milk sold as "TT Tested" was retailed at a premium.
 
TED2010 said:
Everybody involved in the cull will be licenced, it will be done very professionally, they cannot afford any bad publicity as the autumn culls if they go ahead are only pilots and if they are not successful, the plug will be pulled. Badger carcasses will be classed as category 1 waste and will have to be incinerated (because of the disease risk). All badgers culled will be bagged and tagged and a record of numbers kept. This will be monitored by Natural England - a conservation body!

This is an industry led cull and farmers have to pay all costs involved themselves.
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That's good though I'm not sure that farmers should be footing the bill but then that is another argument :)
 
TED2010 said:
Everybody involved in the cull will be licenced, it will be done very professionally, they cannot afford any bad publicity as the autumn culls if they go ahead are only pilots and if they are not successful, the plug will be pulled. Badger carcasses will be classed as category 1 waste and will have to be incinerated (because of the disease risk). All badgers culled will be bagged and tagged and a record of numbers kept. This will be monitored by Natural England - a conservation body!

This is an industry led cull and farmers have to pay all costs involved themselves.
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In view of the restrictions currently endured by farmers, it is unfair that they have to pay, if they had been allowed to take action sooner, this plague would not have spread far and wide.
 
Ienjoy a good debate too hence the reason joining in this one. I am a farmers wife but not born and bred farming (townie) and scottish to boot.
I can however see how much this disease affects various farming communities and how it needs to be tackled.
 
I think too that its about time Jo public were educated a bit more about all aspects of country life not just BTB but other things too. I think it would be a hard wake up call for some. I dont think we can expect to get the public's support on any countryside issue until they do have a little more knowledge. That goes for politicians too.
 
happyhacking:) said:
I think too that its about time Jo public were educated a bit more about all aspects of country life not just BTB but other things too. I think it would be a hard wake up call for some. I dont think we can expect to get the public's support on any countryside issue until they do have a little more knowledge. That goes for politicians too.
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Very true, unfortately the media will only show what thy think the public want to see and it's never the full or factual story. There was a horrific programme called the food inspectors on BBC the other day with a feature on TB. They crucified some poor farmer accusing him of swapping ear tags and hiding reactor cattle, turned out at the end that he was perfectly innocent but poor chap had just got a bit behind with his paperwork ( hardly surprising the amount farmers have to do now), this part was just mentioned briefly at the end, waving the public with a picture that farmers are all crooked. It was so factually incorrect and talked about how important it was to keep TB reactors out of the food chain. Most TB reactors enter the food chain anyway unless the carcass is riddled with lesions then it is binned. If the TB s localised and not more than two lesions, that part is binned but rest goes into the food chain, it's perfectly safe and Gov't get paid for that animal.
 
shortstuff99 said:
The paying of the cull by farmers was decided after a government enquiry into badger culling, you can find it on-line.
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Yes, a government enquiry, to decide NOT to take fiscal responsibility, surprise, surprise that they don't want to pay for it, they know from the Foot and Mouth fiasco of 2001 just how expensive it is to cull any animal population, and they also know that farmers themselves will be prepared to pay the costs of the cull.
To be frank it is not likely to make much difference if pilot schemes are set up, the badgers and other infected animals will spread it outwith cull boundaries, and after the pilot cull there will be years of debate while the local populations build up again.
The badger/TB/cattle/disease/cull argument has been going on for years, it is not recent, in the meantime the badger population has grown and the disease has become endemic.
 
Tiggy1 said:
I do think Adam Henson is helping the awareness issue.
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It has helped a little but I think the video at the start of this post would have more effect on the general public than anything that's been shown on Countryfile yet, I think a bit more graphic material of lovely cows being shot in front of emotional farmers is just what Jo public needs to see!
 
I haven't read through all the responses, but from those that I have read, there seems to be a colossal amount of poorly researched replies.

Badgers are curious animals. They're our dinosaurs, if you like! They are certainly something from our past, which for centuries, despite no natural enemy, rubbed along with man, and lived, with us, a more or less harmonious existence.

Badger populations remained more or less static, for centuries I suspect. I remember my childhood very well, and finding the evidence of badgers, on a fairly regular basis, but I didn't see one until I was in my mid 20s, which would have been in the early 70s.

Our world changed after WW11, in many ways. As an example, The Forestry Commission evolved, in Southern England, the Roe deer population, most certainly because of the new found and ideal environment, exploded. There were Roe deer, EVERYWHERE!! In Hampshire they were living on motorway junctions. Hampshire certainly, was alive with them.

The badger has been given a similar environment in which to prosper. The expansion of cattle and sheep enterprises have promoted the badgers repro rates. The badger, to a large extent, lives off beetles and earth worms. With our continuing mild winters, cattle which 50 years ago were wintered "In", are now left out. As they're left out, the ground living creatures which survive in the dung of the cattle, and which assist he badger through the winter months, have encouraged a breeding programme which is no longer sustainable.

There is no question that we now have far more cattle, and sheep, than we actually need, and accepting that we have a healthy export market, it's the very presence of livestock which encourages such a hike in our badger population.

I cannot see how vaccinating a proportion of the badger population is going to prevent the spread of BTB. Short of completely excavating a sett, I fail to see how all badgers can be accounted for, by vaccination.

There is, as I see it, only one sensible answer; remove the badger from the list of the protected. Badgers are not easily seen, they would be difficult to find and they are not readily killed. In areas of high bovine densities, they would of course be heavily culled, and as nature abhors a vacuum, there would be a ready supply of fresh stock from the areas where they weren't killed.

For those who believe that the badger is hated, you couldn't be further from the truth. All those who farm and keep cattle, view him as a gentle giant and a dinosaur. They have no wish for eradication, just a measured and sustainable cull, which will remove or reduce the threat to their livelihoods.

Alec.
 
There is no good reason why badgers are protected, it may be historic, but in the long run that is the only way to get rid of them, would there be an outcry if rabbits were currently protected and became subject to a cull....... probably.
We have a lot of stupid laws in the UK, seagulls are protected, but they are a complete nuisance in towns and on landfill where they pick up and spread disease.
 
TED2010 said:
Vaccination is hugely expensive and 'if' it works will take 5-10 years before any effect is seen. It is not nearly as easy to cage trap badgers as is suggested and they will have no way of knowing whether they have vaccinated all of the badgers in an area. It is massively impractical and there are uncertainties that the vaccine will even be effective. I'm afraid that there is clear evidence that badger culling does work and has in the past (not the trial that was sabotaged by anti's). If you look at Tb cattle incidences on a graph from the point 20 years ago when it was nearly eradicated, as soon as the Protection of Badgers Act was put into place there was a steady increase in the rate of TB and the number of reactors escalating to the situation we are in today. Why are badgers any different from any other wildlife that farmers are allowed to control? I agree with a law against badger baiting but they went to far. They are overpopulated and disease within the species is rife and spreading to many other species.
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Absolutely right. Before the Protection of Badgers Act came in, my husband, a professional terrier man, provided a service to farmers when requested to do so, by managing the badger population, as did many other hunt servants throughout the UK. The result of this management was a healthy badger population and a near eradication of BTB.

Politicians and bunny huggers have destroyed the farming community in the UK.
 
happyhacking:) said:
I think too that its about time Jo public were educated a bit more about all aspects of country life not just BTB but other things too. I think it would be a hard wake up call for some. I dont think we can expect to get the public's support on any countryside issue until they do have a little more knowledge. That goes for politicians too.
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That is an excellent view, however, the public are and will remain only interested in buying the cheapest food possible.

I work with grown adults that have no idea how the air packed meats arrive in their shopping trolley. I was viewed with horror when my colleagues realised my family rear and eat our own meat, and yet there was a queue for the subsequent excess beef burgers and sausages from the beast taken to slaughter.

One co worker asked me if I was looking forward to having the day off christmas day and boxing day. He had no idea the farm kept going regardless of holidays and was quite bemused that there is no such thing as a 'lie in or day off' - that is what you are up against when you consider educating some of the public.

With a lot of the public having no conception of how food gets from farm to plate, there is little hope of them understanding or caring about the problems encountered by farmers along the way.
 
Miss L Toe said:
There is no good reason why badgers are protected, it may be historic, but in the long run that is the only way to get rid of them, would there be an outcry if rabbits were currently protected and became subject to a cull....... probably.
We have a lot of stupid laws in the UK, seagulls are protected, but they are a complete nuisance in towns and on landfill where they pick up and spread disease.
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I'm not for removing protection completely, you do still get the irresponsible, cruel ***** who will use them as bait for dogs and this is still rife! Just ask the Police Force. A system of licensing for responsible members of society who have valid reasons to cull is better. People who bait go back time and time again then move onto the next sett and wipe it out also. They are not selective.

Seagulls are drawn in by our waste and mess, they are opportunists who have learned through 'our' filthiness that an easy meal is to be had. I can never understand why people can blame animals for adapting to changes we force on their environments.
 
Maybe it's time for licensing of all wildlife management staff. Those who are licensed can carry out selective culls ect. For the rest it would remain illegal.
 
Have not read all the posts but least there is a general agreement something needs to be done.
I am certainly not against a cull if the scientific evidence shows the badger a major contributing factor, is this the case?
And if it is the case then I expect a combination of culling ( in the areas tb is rife ) but also vaccinating I those areas tb is not yet prevalent .
I think I'm right in thinking on country file last weekend alsi Adams farm had longhorns that showed to be positive reactors and hence were to be destroyed heartbreaking!
 
lannerch said:
Have not read all the posts but least there is a general agreement something needs to be done.
I am certainly not against a cull if the scientific evidence shows the badger a major contributing factor, is this the case?
And if it is the case then I expect a combination of culling ( in the areas tb is rife ) but also vaccinating I those areas tb is not yet prevalent .
I think I'm right in thinking on country file last weekend alsi Adams farm had longhorns that showed to be positive reactors and hence were to be destroyed heartbreaking!
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Vaccinating a wild animal population is impractical if they need to be injected, also causes mega stress in a wild animal, deer for example are very nervous.
It is difficult to do scientific research on a wild population, and most people [ myself included] would object to experimentation on live badgers to be kept in captivity, one lot as "control" and the other as "treatment", then after experimentation they would have to be killed.
Who was it who played the violin while Rome burned?
 
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I haven't read many of the replies, so apologies if I'm repeating things.

Government research has been done extensively on bTB, and although the research actually showed that deer were the main problem, and vaccination in food/bait was working successfully, these papers were prevented from being published. Although something was mentioned to me about these being "grey papers" and that they are out there, but just not published in magazines etc?

If you disturb/cull the healthy badgers and they move away, there is a likelihood the ones that move in to replace will be carriers of bTB. A vaccination for deer/badgers etc is what I believe personally, as unless a very successful cull is done and very properly, I believe the effects could be worse than what we are having now.
 
Tormenta said:
Seagulls are drawn in by our waste and mess, they are opportunists who have learned through 'our' filthiness that an easy meal is to be had. I can never understand why people can blame animals for adapting to changes we force on their environments.
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I did not realise the Protection of Badgers Acts was set up to stop badger baiting, surely this would have been covered under normal cruelty legislation.
I don't "blame" any animal for being opportunist, I just don't want animals which spread diseases to dominate. I once had a "b/f" tell me that "they are all Gods creatures............. Clamidia [STD]. He was not normal.
 
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