Badgers

[earth-thrower 494]

Well,from what ive gleaned from the reports, the " testing regime " isnt infallible.Some also claim cattle being moved around,for restocking, after the foot and mouth crisis,introduced TB to areas, where it hadnt been a problem previous.I can certainly accept however,that there are too many badgers in certain parts, and this can lead to problems with them.How come its alright for the government to be able to kill thousands of them ? But if a responsible countryman/pest controller had to resolve a situation with any "problem badgers",where a suitable " lethal control " method,is the best solution.This is completely disallowed !

[snakey 4]

Well,from what ive gleaned from the reports, the " testing regime " isnt infallible.Some also claim cattle being moved around,for restocking, after the foot and mouth crisis,introduced TB to areas, where it hadnt been a problem previous.I can certainly accept however,that there are too many badgers in certain parts, and this can lead to problems with them.How come its alright for the government to be able to kill thousands of them ? But if a responsible countryman/pest controller had to resolve a situation with any "problem badgers",where a suitable " lethal control " method,is the best solution.This is completely disallowed !

Totally agree with your point of view E.T. There is a nagging thought in the back of my head as to why the governing body has not yet made a defining result as to what is responsible to the spread of TB.

[Matt 160]

 

Well,from what ive gleaned from the reports, the " testing regime " isnt infallible.Some also claim cattle being moved around,for restocking, after the foot and mouth crisis,introduced TB to areas, where it hadnt been a problem previous.I can certainly accept however,that there are too many badgers in certain parts, and this can lead to problems with them.How come its alright for the government to be able to kill thousands of them ? But if a responsible countryman/pest controller had to resolve a situation with any "problem badgers",where a suitable " lethal control " method,is the best solution.This is completely disallowed !

Totally agree with your point of view E.T. There is a nagging thought in the back of my head as to why the governing body has not yet made a defining result as to what is responsible to the spread of TB.

 

 

They have.

 

Just google 'Thornbury Badgers' and you will see it for yourself.

 

The trouble is; people keep letting scientists get involved.

 

Anyone who worked in the field during the RBCT will tell you that the 'science' was flawed from the start. Too much emphasis on setts and not enough on activity, no proper policing of reactive culling areas at times which resulted in animal rights activists taking badgers off infected farms and releasing them into 'safe areas', I could go on....

 

Anyway, the main reason why John Bourne said that culling wouldn't make a significant difference was because culling in reactive areas caused 'Perturbation'. The fact that the majority of this alleged perturbation was caused by animal rights activists spreading bTB into the area surrounding the cull area could not be 'scientifically quantified' so was therefore ignored.

 

Also, it was very difficult to get enough badgers culled when you could only use cages that were being interfered with every night. If we could have lamped or snared on the infected farms, we would have achieved a higher cull percentage and the difference would have been much more noticeable.

 

Don't forget, the proposed cull is not a state cull, it's a licence given to some farmer consortiums that will allow them to employ approved contractors to carry out culling to see if the proposed methods are humane. Any reduction in bTB rates is secondary to finding out if using methods other than cages is humane.

 

As far as I'm concerned, they should just issue licences to individual farmers in those counties where bTB is rife. Let folks get on with it for themselves and watch the bTB fall as a result.

[chris87 297]

interesting thread lads

[ratattack 111]

Exactly Matt!

 

The perturbation effect that the antis constantly quote is also badgers filling the void left behind, not as they say badgers fleeing the killing of their families :/ perturbation only occurred on the edges of the cull zones where a void was available to be filled by the hundreds left outside the buffer zones.

 

It's a shame the antis can't grasp that if their precious badgers are responsible then they should be removed as well as the cows! But trials should be left in peace to proceed to the end to get a true result. RBCT would work without AR interference. I'm sure of that! Although this would only work if no one outside the teams carrying out the work was informed, must thank labour for freedom of information acts.

[snakey 4]

Exactly Matt!

 

The perturbation effect that the antis constantly quote is also badgers filling the void left behind, not as they say badgers fleeing the killing of their families :/ perturbation only occurred on the edges of the cull zones where a void was available to be filled by the hundreds left outside the buffer zones.

 

It's a shame the antis can't grasp that if their precious badgers are responsible then they should be removed as well as the cows! But trials should be left in peace to proceed to the end to get a true result. RBCT would work without AR interference. I'm sure of that! Although this would only work if no one outside the teams carrying out the work was informed, must thank labour for freedom of information acts.

That is probably the only way forward with the continuation of the trials to achieve a positive end result.

[Matt 160]

The problem with the RBCT as Ratattack has said, was the freedom of information act. That and a couple snakes that were selling information to the papers......

 

The animal rights people knew exactly what areas were being trapped and when.

 

I did some reactive culling in one triplet area where the antis were running wild. They started off by cutting up cages as we put them out, then when we started trapping they took the badgers and released them just outside the trial area.

 

The police wouldn't attend, despite the obvious criminal damage and theft that was taking place, and we had to sit and watch them do their worst.

 

The official line at the time was that it wouldn't effect the outcome; in reality, we all knew it would.

 

Low and behold, at the end of the trial some farms just outside the reactive cull area were reported as TB infected. The cause was put down as 'perturbation' (the effect of badgers moving due to disruption of their social groups) instead of the real cause, which was interference by animal rights activists.

 

Now the antis are using 'perturbation' as the reason why they think the trials shouldn't go ahead.

 

In reality, if we'd been allowed to get on with lamping and snaring the badgers on the infected farms, instead of having to rely on cage traps that had to be pre-baited for two weeks, and had to be based on two traps for each badger and only within a set distance of setts, the results would have been very different.

 

When MAFF operated the 'Clean Ring Strategy' in the early eighties, the results were astounding. The problem was that that strategy wasn't science led and peer reviewed, so is considered to be 'unscientific'.

 

Post FMD there was some restocking that took place, but realistically, there was always going to be more TB reported due to the lack of TB testing during the disease outbreak.

 

Sadly, there are more badgers than foxes on Devonshire farms, and as their numbers continue to increase with the increase in Maize as a forage crop and their unregulated numbers, the reservoir of TB continues to increase and spread into other species like deer.

 

Anyone interested should read www.bovinetb.blogspot.com which is a great blog written by a farmer who has suffered from the ravages of TB for years.

[snakey 4]

The problem with the RBCT as Ratattack has said, was the freedom of information act. That and a couple snakes that were selling information to the papers......

 

The animal rights people knew exactly what areas were being trapped and when.

 

I did some reactive culling in one triplet area where the antis were running wild. They started off by cutting up cages as we put them out, then when we started trapping they took the badgers and released them just outside the trial area.

 

The police wouldn't attend, despite the obvious criminal damage and theft that was taking place, and we had to sit and watch them do their worst.

 

The official line at the time was that it wouldn't effect the outcome; in reality, we all knew it would.

 

Low and behold, at the end of the trial some farms just outside the reactive cull area were reported as TB infected. The cause was put down as 'perturbation' (the effect of badgers moving due to disruption of their social groups) instead of the real cause, which was interference by animal rights activists.

 

Now the antis are using 'perturbation' as the reason why they think the trials shouldn't go ahead.

 

In reality, if we'd been allowed to get on with lamping and snaring the badgers on the infected farms, instead of having to rely on cage traps that had to be pre-baited for two weeks, and had to be based on two traps for each badger and only within a set distance of setts, the results would have been very different.

 

When MAFF operated the 'Clean Ring Strategy' in the early eighties, the results were astounding. The problem was that that strategy wasn't science led and peer reviewed, so is considered to be 'unscientific'.

 

Post FMD there was some restocking that took place, but realistically, there was always going to be more TB reported due to the lack of TB testing during the disease outbreak.

 

Sadly, there are more badgers than foxes on Devonshire farms, and as their numbers continue to increase with the increase in Maize as a forage crop and their unregulated numbers, the reservoir of TB continues to increase and spread into other species like deer.

 

Anyone interested should read www.bovinetb.blogspot.com which is a great blog written by a farmer who has suffered from the ravages of TB for years.

Wow! thats one hell of a blog, very interesting read, it is very worrying reading about the `overspill` affecting other animals especially deer.