Badger Cull Postponed

soloequestrian said:
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Cattle could be tested only at slaughter and removed from the food chain if positive, or they could be tested before export. The money saved on reduced testing and compensation could be used for further strategies to reduce contact of cattle and wildlife - it's not just badgers that carry TB is it?
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You should be heading up Defra. Brilliant!! ;):D:D

FFS.

Alec.
 
soloequestrian said:
How would farmers react if instead of a bounty being offered for badgers, the money was put towards improving fencing and building security on farms that are affected by badger entry?
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Most likely with a long list of expleitives!!!
I think it's hapening the old little farms are going and being replaced with mega factory farms totaly sterrile huge fields growing grass and maize and nowhere for badgers or wildlife to cause problems, nature controled , with little so called consevation areas on the farm, is this what you want??? I think its close to the end for the countryside as we know it and alot is due to idiots and the morons we have in goverment without any practical knowlege and the few with common sense are constantly shouted down...
 
Farmers have been losing their livlihoods over this for years and they are expected to sit back and take it on the chin from people who this doesn't affect in any way. When the manure hits the fan they will still want cheap food.
 
perfect11s said:
Most likely with a long list of expleitives!!!
I think it's hapening the old little farms are going and being replaced with mega factory farms totaly sterrile huge fields growing grass and maize and nowhere for badgers or wildlife to cause problems, nature controled , with little so called consevation areas on the farm, is this what you want??? I think its close to the end for the countryside as we know it and alot is due to idiots and the morons we have in goverment without any practical knowlege and the few with common sense are constantly shouted down...
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Actually the increase in maize acreage has been a bonus for badgers, they can soon trash a crop.
 
Alec Swan said:
Fencing badgers "In" isn't an option, as they will either find a way out, or starve to death. Fencing them out isn't an option either, because of the prohibitive costs. If we assume that a 10 acre field would have a perimeter of at least 1000 metres then at the barest minimum of £20 per metre, for purpose made badger fencing to be supplied and erected, and beside that we would need to add specialist manufactured gates, and concrete bases to prevent badgers from digging, then each 10 acre field would cost in the region of £23-25k, and then having spent that money, the little tinkers would still find a way through. That, or they'd stand at the perimeter fence, and as BTb is passed on through nasal exhalations, the spores which are so damaging would still be passed on. ;)
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And this bit seems to ignore a fairly important point - why do the badgers want to be the other side of the particular fence? If it is because there are resources there that they want (what?), can they be provided elsewhere, or moved so that the badger has no reason to get to that point any more. If the fence is blocking a travel route, can an alternative, easier, route be established and if not can the current route be maintained while keeping cattle out of contact. Could double fencing be used to keep a distance between cow and badger. Could cows be housed a night more often so they don't come into direct contact etc etc.
You don't need to make it impossible for an animal to do something, just make it uneconomical. This is what I meant about using money to help plan things like fencing programmes - make use of the badger experts out there to outwit the badgers. It would be a poor show if humans can't manage to do that.
 
jrp204 said:
Farmers have been losing their livlihoods over this for years and they are expected to sit back and take it on the chin from people who this doesn't affect in any way. When the manure hits the fan they will still want cheap food.
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Ahh but we can import our food like we import manual workers we dont need our own farmers , the badgers will pay all the bills they are actualy gods and have the power to solve world hunger and wars there is nothing more important in life as as badger worship anyone who harms them is a child of satan and should be burnt !!!!
 
perfect11s said:
Ahh but we can import our food like we import manual workers we dont need our own farmers , the badgers will pay all the bills they are actualy gods and have the power to solve world hunger and wars there is nothing more important in life as as badger worship anyone who harms them is a child of satan and should be burnt !!!![/QUOTE

Oh bow to the brock god............................
Import our food complete with free Foot and Mouth, bTB, salmonella, newcastle disease, avian influenza to name a few, reared in conditions far below UK welfare standards. But thats ok.
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soloequestrian said:
And this bit seems to ignore a fairly important point - why do the badgers want to be the other side of the particular fence? If it is because there are resources there that they want (what?), can they be provided elsewhere, or moved so that the badger has no reason to get to that point any more. If the fence is blocking a travel route, can an alternative, easier, route be established and if not can the current route be maintained while keeping cattle out of contact. Could double fencing be used to keep a distance between cow and badger. Could cows be housed a night more often so they don't come into direct contact etc etc.
You don't need to make it impossible for an animal to do something, just make it uneconomical. This is what I meant about using money to help plan things like fencing programmes - make use of the badger experts out there to outwit the badgers. It would be a poor show if humans can't manage to do that.
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Yes i can just see my OH having time to be turning in and out his 500 cows plus calves every day. Badgers have been seen trying to get into cattle feed troughs raised off the ground and mineral lick. The will also take the gate off its hinges to get into an empty field. We employed a Badger expert and he actually advised that there was nothing other than culling could be done. I would love to see where all this extra money has come from to double up on fencing considering all the exta feed/ bedding/ etc etc as we cant sell our stock on top of monthly testing!
 
jrp204 said:
perfect11s said:
Ahh but we can import our food like we import manual workers we dont need our own farmers , the badgers will pay all the bills they are actualy gods and have the power to solve world hunger and wars there is nothing more important in life as as badger worship anyone who harms them is a child of satan and should be burnt !!!![/QUOTE

Oh bow to the brock god............................
Import our food complete with free Foot and Mouth, bTB, salmonella, newcastle disease, avian influenza to name a few, reared in conditions far below UK welfare standards. But thats ok.
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LOL !!! The thing is this country is going down we may well become 3rd world, im shocked and dismayed at the number of clever enterprising and practical people i meet who are planning to leave, leaving or thinking about leaving the country its a massive brain drain
of the very people we need to pull us out of the mess we are in but there insnt much help or benifit to staying so they go to Aus to work in the mining indutrstry , buy farms in canada, anywhere but here, never to return Id say we are left with the semi educated public sector types
and the hard of thinking, sad realy if I didint have aged parents and a foot on the housing ladder Id be off like a shot ...
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The only possible practical/effective/economic way to separate cattle and badgers, assuming no cull/control on the latter is for cattle to be kept in the sort of indoor 365 days a year mega dairies that the very same people who oppose a cull also oppose - ironic, eh.

Plus I dont WANT to see the best livestock raising parts of this island empty of stock apart from a dying badger.

Frankly, if the numbers are 3x what was thought then that provides the final compelling justification to abandon a bureaucratic cull and instead do what should and could have been done years ago and amend the badger act so they are treated just like any other non endangered wild animal who can cause predation or disease issues for livestock.

I have never understood why the treatment is so different from that of foxes, rats etc esp given that badgers are spreading a disease which can kill people and domestic animals. (see TB blogspot for the account of the poor lady who was infected with bovine TB from her alpacas - who picked it up from - well you can guess....)

Badger baiting etc would still be just as much of a crime but farmers with TB infection or issues with badgers would be able to clear the sett. They can tell a clean sett from an infected one, for a start, a badger out alone in the daytime has probably been driven out, and quite likely because of TB.

The other point is that, if the government do not get a grip on this issue in conjunction with the ever more strangling movement restrictions and planned cutting of compensation for culls, farmers will be forced (and I mean forced) to 'deal with' the problem themselves, law or no law. I hope they do so, for the sake of the badgers, the cattle, the deer, the camelids, dogs and people whose future lives they will save. If this doesnt happen, Britain can look forward to a future with no livestock in its fields and we can import cheap meat raised cruelly overseas.

I speak as a non cattle farmer but as someone with livestock. I also love wildlife. But healthy wildlife.
 
soloequestrian said:
Go on then, tell me what is wrong with the suggestion, don't just swear about it.
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Hopefully, you weren't offended. The problems that I have with the whole subject are such that it is an incredibly complex matter, and we need to balance those points which support each argument, and conversely, those which don't. I'm not sure that I can stretch myself that far.

The reality is that you are proposing that those who keep cattle, who all so often work a 14 hour day, throughout the year, and often longer hours in the summer, spend even more time, bringing cattle in at night, when those ovines need the grass uptake which is available, and to disturb resting and lactating cattle, where their nutritional uptake, SPECIFICALLY at night, is of vital importance, and all because you don't want brock to die. :confused:

Another line of yours, and I'm doing my best to be tolerant; the line where you've suggested that funds are available for fencing. I've already responded that at £20-25 per metre, and many farms would need 50 THOUSAND metres, you've now suggested that perhaps we could put up double fences. Guess who's going to pay for all this ....... yep, you've got it, you and I. You may not mind, but I do, especially when I see children, here in the UK who go without, especially when I see an education system which is struggling, and especially when I see the elderly lying and dying in hospital walk ways........ and all through lack of funds.

Yes, I mind, I mind a great deal.

Alec.
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
The only possible practical/effective/economic way to separate cattle and badgers, assuming no cull/control on the latter is for cattle to be kept in the sort of indoor 365 days a year mega dairies that the very same people who oppose a cull also oppose - ironic, eh.

Plus I dont WANT to see the best livestock raising parts of this island empty of stock apart from a dying badger.

Frankly, if the numbers are 3x what was thought then that provides the final compelling justification to abandon a bureaucratic cull and instead do what should and could have been done years ago and amend the badger act so they are treated just like any other non endangered wild animal who can cause predation or disease issues for livestock.

I have never understood why the treatment is so different from that of foxes, rats etc esp given that badgers are spreading a disease which can kill people and domestic animals. (see TB blogspot for the account of the poor lady who was infected with bovine TB from her alpacas - who picked it up from - well you can guess....)

Badger baiting etc would still be just as much of a crime but farmers with TB infection or issues with badgers would be able to clear the sett. They can tell a clean sett from an infected one, for a start, a badger out alone in the daytime has probably been driven out, and quite likely because of TB.

The other point is that, if the government do not get a grip on this issue in conjunction with the ever more strangling movement restrictions and planned cutting of compensation for culls, farmers will be forced (and I mean forced) to 'deal with' the problem themselves, law or no law. I hope they do so, for the sake of the badgers, the cattle, the deer, the camelids, dogs and people whose future lives they will save. If this doesnt happen, Britain can look forward to a future with no livestock in its fields and we can import cheap meat raised cruelly overseas.

I speak as a non cattle farmer but as someone with livestock. I also love wildlife. But healthy wildlife.
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Exactly 100%
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
Frankly, if the numbers are 3x what was thought then that provides the final compelling justification to abandon a bureaucratic cull and instead do what should and could have been done years ago and amend the badger act so they are treated just like any other non endangered wild animal who can cause predation or disease issues for livestock.
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This makes way more sense than the proposed cull. As I said above, many farmers don't want to get rid of 'their' badgers - why would you kill off loads of healthy badgers and leave room for the possiblity that diseased ones will move in from another cull zone?
 
It is true that badgers are very terratorial. This used to work in our favour. If you were a cattle farmer who also had badgers and you had a clear tb test, it was safe to say that your badgers were clean and kept out any itinerant badgers. When TB started to become a problem in the late 90s (in Devon) when we went from a routine breeding adults only test every 2 years, to annual testing all bovines over 6 weeks, many farms continued to stay clear.

Farmers and wildlife have lived and let live for hundreds of years. As more herds were affected, farmers began to take matters into their own hands, quite understandably, and badgers were being snared, shot and poisoned. The badgers began to disperse and dirty became mixed with clean and the rest is history.

I say again, badgers are not cute and cuddly. If you have ever had a close encounter with one, they are astonishingly aggressive. It's tough that they have TB, they are sick and dying and spreading the disease. It cannot be allowed to continue.
 
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Alec Swan said:
I've done neither. The word "Nonsense" comes from the term "No sense", and that sums up your argument. Sorry, and I wish that it was otherwise. Sadly, it isn't.

Alec.
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To be fair you are both right (ish) in the sense that the scientists believe that to be effective, a limited area cull is only going to make the problem less if you take out over 70% of the badger population.

So if that happened, the TB problem would reduce. However, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty over the population figures, the only certainty being there are an awful lot more badgers out there in these areas than previously estimated (and surely therefore a lot more than would require any continuation of the blanket protection they currently enjoy.!!.......:-)))

this is why farmers are concerned - they want to do the cull but only if it will work to help badgers and cattle, otherwise it will be seized on as a stick to beat them with, plus many of them believe they can clear out diseased badgers and leave healthy ones and could do a better job as they have little faith in the politicians and their own representatives. They dont believe that no exercise of TB badger culling is needed, it would be wrong for anyone to give that impression, it is all about the methodology and bureaucracy involved and the competence of those 'organising' it.
 
sport horse said:
My land is private but I have to put up with Badger 'people' coming to check on the badger setts (which I have never touched or interfered with) thus trespassing on my land at all hours of the day and night. Why should my horses be frightened by people trespassing with torches at night?
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WHY do you have to put up with them? I have 5 bloody setts on my land - thankfully they are largely in the woodland and only one on the edge of a field. But no WAY would I let any bunny-hugger badger people NEAR them (after all, if you were a badger baiter and wanted to find new setts to rob, what would be the easiest way to find out where setts were??? - join a Badger group, of course!)

Although if you WANT to get rid of your badgers, people with torches visiting at night, CAN work. My neighbour, whose small patch of woodland joins ours, was bemoaning the fact that she though all 'her' badgers had been killed on the road - she SO enjoyed going out at night to watch them by torchlight! I'd already spotted the new Sett not too far from her woodland - but now in ours! Brock wanted peace and quiet!:rolleyes:
 
Orangehorse said:
The reason the cull has been postponed was that research found DOUBLE the number of estimated badgers, hence it was going to be impossible to shoot the required numbers in the time available.

Remember people, that back in the 1970s TB in cattle had virtually been eliminated, that is the UK was just about disease free. This was done by gassing every badger sett around if a routine cattle test showed TB in a herd. Therefore not only did the cow with TB get slaughtered but any badger that might have been carrying it to other herds were slaughtered as well. There was no shortage of badgers.

There were just a few cases occuring in Gloucestershire when the gassing was stopped and badgers were made a protected species. I never heard of TB in cattle 30 years ago, then a neighbouring farmer started to get outbreaks, which meant that we had to be tested as well, always negative. The neighbour had a dairy herd and used to buy in heifers, calve them and then sell them on, so he was getting them from different parts of the country.

Time was when the badger groups denied that badgers could give TB to cattle, but many years ago the vets were saying that was rubbish.

Everyone goes on about poor badgers, mustn't shoot them when pregnant, no one cares about the cows that are pregnant.

I have my doubts about shooting badgers, how can they make enough difference to the population. Badger setts should be gassed until TB in cattle has gone. We know that badgers are not an endangered species, they can carry on breeding in the New Forest, Kent, etc. etc. it is in the West Country and creeping ever northwards towards Cheshire that they need getting rid.
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Couldn't agree more (and I LIKE badgers - in small numbers!) Gassing setts would be FAR more humane and effective than free shooting (and cost a lot less! Dairy farmers - in particular - cannot continue with the falling price for milk AND the risk of losing large numbers of their herds! I've lost count of the number of dairy farmers around us that have got out!
 
Very bad news for our poor farmers, very good news for that awful May and his clueless cronies. I just hope that the plan can go ahead, and go ahead properly next year. I have my doubts, however. It gives the cull's opponents plenty of time to campaign, and more than likely they will succeed-they normally do. :(
 
jrp204 said:
I would like to know how a badgers life is more valuable than a rats?
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Inherent value would be the same, I'd have thought. To torture a rat would be just as bad as torturing a badger. Added value depends on the extent to which they are valued or reviled by people, on economic benefit/cost, tastiness, etc. - a moveable feast. So different people regard the killing of rats and badgers rather differently.
 
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One thing puzzles me - many other forms of wildlife also carry tb - rabbits, hares, deer etc. Should they be culled as well?
 
Alyth said:
One thing puzzles me - many other forms of wildlife also carry tb - rabbits, hares, deer etc. Should they be culled as well?
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Presumably the epidemiology of the disease has indicated that badgers are the main culprit - though I would be surprised if they were alone in being vectors, given that transmission occurs via pee and poo. In addition...

"There is also the potential for direct transmission of bacteria through nose to nose contact between badgers and cattle as the bacteria can be spread as respiratory aerosols."

apparently. I can't imagine rabbits, hares or even deer coming close enough to cattle to snuffle or sneeze.
 
Alyth said:
One thing puzzles me - many other forms of wildlife also carry tb - rabbits, hares, deer etc. Should they be culled as well?
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Well it's quite simple; they are all culled already, it's perfectly legal to shoot them when you want and if you have a problem. I'm not sure how significant a vector these animals are compared to badgers though.
 
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