Badger Cull 2013

[hutch6 550]

 

 

 

I don't get how a badger cull will erradicate bTB when there are a whole other multitude of creatures that harbour and spread it. Deer, wild boar, cats, dogs, rats and alpacas are just a few, so why aren't measures being put in place to cull these alongside an improvement of animal husbandry?

 

The previous cull provided conclusive evidence that it made no difference to the numbers of bTB cases in the trialled area. I fear this is just a way of giving in the nutty NFU leadership team and hiding the fact that hundreds of millions of public money has been wasted on research, compensation and development for an innoculation but the best they can come up with is a vaccine that shows a positive result to the bTB test activator. This is just a cheaper alternative to trapping and vaccinating the badgers for which there IS a verified vaccine. Sure Brian May is a bit of a dick but I don't think a cull is the way to manage this. Maybe of the farmers stopped spreading confirmed infected slurry from their pits into their fields as fertiliser that would be a big step in the right direction. Plenty of farmers have badgers living on their land and have yet to see and outbreak case on their land.

To be fair I haven't read enough of the evidence/alternatives to reducing bTB to debate the suggestions your making BUT taking on board the areas you've highlighted such as spreading slurry and animal husbandry why would it make sense to spend even more money vaccinating a pest species rather than culling?

 

 

Badgers are a pest species? Where is that stated? What pest activity do they carry out?

 

Why would it make more sense to wipe out a species that has perfectly adequate vaccine to prevent the individual becoming a host or transport? Under that argument anyone with a common cold should be terminated to prevent the spread of the virus but unlike witht he common cold bTB has a multitude of carriers across various species.

 

The "science" behidn the cull proposition suggests that bTB cases will reduce by 16%. WTF is causing the 84% then and why aren't folk looking at the causes of the larger sections instead of wiping out something that causes just 16%?

 

DEFRA themselves only 5yrs ago stated that the common single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test which is used on British cattle had more than positive results (pardon th pun) - "Many countries have eradicated bTB through the systematic application of the tuberculin skin test alone and the slaughter of all test reactors."

No culling of any wildlife required.

 

http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/control/tuberculin.htm

 

The issue lies in intensive farming which a result fo consumer demands. Demands for cheaper and cheaper produce has meant that farmers have to cram as many animals as they can the turn a profit which is bound to backfire somewhere along the lines and in this case the badger is to blame and must face the brunt of the blinkered people who can not accpet that consumer behaviour has to change in ordre for farming practices to change in order for the catalysts for bTB to be reduced. This will focus on the 84% reduction factors and not the 16% factors.

The only thing the 16% factors focus on is to give some relief to those who wish to blast all and sundry in the countryside to bits who feel they have had a involuntary vaccectomy since the hunting ban came in. They just can't get enough popping off the odd bit here and there, they want the feeling of being able to shoot something different and as shooting badgers hasn't been legal since the last ice age it's new and exciting to them rather than them thinking "Hang on, we had badgers and cattle on this land for millenia and yet this is a relatively new thing?"

 

Vets are even holding their hands up and saying "We are sorry we didn;t spot bTB In cats and dogs earlier!" and the pro-cullers are coming back with "Shhh! There's badgers to kill!"

 

This cull will not serve as anything except to take out a link in our natural wildife which could have disasterous knock effects for other species you ARE allowed to shoot legally.

 

Taking aside your views on the effectiveness of a cull in regards to bTB. Do you genuinly believe in the current numbers that Badgers are not a pest species that don't need controlling?

 

 

My views? These aren't just my views these are the views of the same scientists that carried out the last test cull and the independent scientists that reviewed their findings and the views of the leading ministry scientists that were consulted on the matter but then others with a pro-cull opinion came in to fudge the actual science. DEFRA themselves were looking away from badgers only 5 years ago, nowe all of a sudden they have changed their whole ethos?

 

Controlling. That would be a cull. This isn't going to be a cull though, its more like a persecution.

[staffs riffraff 1,068]

Think roads play a huge part in the controll of keeping areas separate amount of them you see on certain roads you think either there's thousands to a couple square mile if large % are getting past the roads or the roads keeping all but a tiny % in that area don't know if it just me but most tb cases seem to be more rural away from main trunk roads ?

[C Hall 552]

Can someone remind me why they ever needed protecting in the 1st place?

[mushroom 13,228]

 

 

 

Matt the Rat is very clued up on the science behind this, it'd be interesting to hear his views. One thing I do know, Re bTB and badger culling the science is so clouded with politics it can hardly be considered science!

 

As for wiping out the badger, it's a cull not an erradication!

 

The "science" isn't even science BH. It is a politically driven scheme and nothing else.

 

Ah, now I though it was a trial in two areas over a five year period with a four year rest and investigation period (as they did before) but it is a nationwide scheme. They will monitor the two areas for effectivenes of badger removal, safety of the work and the humaness of the kills, after that are going nationwide with it. We are looking at a reduction in badgers upto -90% in some areas. How can that be justified as a cul. A cull is to control, this will nearly wipe them out with no scientific evidence.

 

Take yourself off to May's house ffs he'll be happy for your input. Next you'll be saying they control their own numbers

 

 

Well you've just proved you can't read so I'll type the next bit slowly and in little words.

 

Cubs are vulnerable to natural predation and humans and cars do the rest with the adults.

 

Ok love

[Huwidge 69]

 

 

 

 

I don't get how a badger cull will erradicate bTB when there are a whole other multitude of creatures that harbour and spread it. Deer, wild boar, cats, dogs, rats and alpacas are just a few, so why aren't measures being put in place to cull these alongside an improvement of animal husbandry?

 

The previous cull provided conclusive evidence that it made no difference to the numbers of bTB cases in the trialled area. I fear this is just a way of giving in the nutty NFU leadership team and hiding the fact that hundreds of millions of public money has been wasted on research, compensation and development for an innoculation but the best they can come up with is a vaccine that shows a positive result to the bTB test activator. This is just a cheaper alternative to trapping and vaccinating the badgers for which there IS a verified vaccine. Sure Brian May is a bit of a dick but I don't think a cull is the way to manage this. Maybe of the farmers stopped spreading confirmed infected slurry from their pits into their fields as fertiliser that would be a big step in the right direction. Plenty of farmers have badgers living on their land and have yet to see and outbreak case on their land.

To be fair I haven't read enough of the evidence/alternatives to reducing bTB to debate the suggestions your making BUT taking on board the areas you've highlighted such as spreading slurry and animal husbandry why would it make sense to spend even more money vaccinating a pest species rather than culling?

 

 

Badgers are a pest species? Where is that stated? What pest activity do they carry out?

 

Why would it make more sense to wipe out a species that has perfectly adequate vaccine to prevent the individual becoming a host or transport? Under that argument anyone with a common cold should be terminated to prevent the spread of the virus but unlike witht he common cold bTB has a multitude of carriers across various species.

 

The "science" behidn the cull proposition suggests that bTB cases will reduce by 16%. WTF is causing the 84% then and why aren't folk looking at the causes of the larger sections instead of wiping out something that causes just 16%?

 

DEFRA themselves only 5yrs ago stated that the common single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test which is used on British cattle had more than positive results (pardon th pun) - "Many countries have eradicated bTB through the systematic application of the tuberculin skin test alone and the slaughter of all test reactors."

No culling of any wildlife required.

 

http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/control/tuberculin.htm

 

The issue lies in intensive farming which a result fo consumer demands. Demands for cheaper and cheaper produce has meant that farmers have to cram as many animals as they can the turn a profit which is bound to backfire somewhere along the lines and in this case the badger is to blame and must face the brunt of the blinkered people who can not accpet that consumer behaviour has to change in ordre for farming practices to change in order for the catalysts for bTB to be reduced. This will focus on the 84% reduction factors and not the 16% factors.

The only thing the 16% factors focus on is to give some relief to those who wish to blast all and sundry in the countryside to bits who feel they have had a involuntary vaccectomy since the hunting ban came in. They just can't get enough popping off the odd bit here and there, they want the feeling of being able to shoot something different and as shooting badgers hasn't been legal since the last ice age it's new and exciting to them rather than them thinking "Hang on, we had badgers and cattle on this land for millenia and yet this is a relatively new thing?"

 

Vets are even holding their hands up and saying "We are sorry we didn;t spot bTB In cats and dogs earlier!" and the pro-cullers are coming back with "Shhh! There's badgers to kill!"

 

This cull will not serve as anything except to take out a link in our natural wildife which could have disasterous knock effects for other species you ARE allowed to shoot legally.

 

Taking aside your views on the effectiveness of a cull in regards to bTB. Do you genuinly believe in the current numbers that Badgers are not a pest species that don't need controlling?

 

 

My views? These aren't just my views these are the views of the same scientists that carried out the last test cull and the independent scientists that reviewed their findings and the views of the leading ministry scientists that were consulted on the matter but then others with a pro-cull opinion came in to fudge the actual science. DEFRA themselves were looking away from badgers only 5 years ago, nowe all of a sudden they have changed their whole ethos?

 

Controlling. That would be a cull. This isn't going to be a cull though, its more like a persecution.

 

its not hard for a scientist to sit in his lab researching all these figures and coming to a conclusion, to me that means f**k all. you only need to spend a bit of time out in the country day and night almost anywhere in the country to realize badger numbers are too high and they need to be culled.

it makes my blood boil to think people wont back and support farmers that are dying on their feet to protect a pest such as a badger.

[hutch6 550]

hutch6 you seem to have far to much love for this pest. it will only end in tears for you when a cull is put in place.

 

I respect them and I think numbers do need to be controlled slightly but not to the extent this is going to. Look at what else spreads bTB or carried it and then ask why there isn't a cull happening on those or what is being done about those?

 

This will all end in tears when it goes badly and gives shooting and hunting an even worse reputation in the public eye than it has now. Get set for a complete hunting ban call soon after and all it takes is one party promise it and we are all outnumbered by those that oppose it and we will lose everything.

[Born Hunter 17,798]

 

Hutch, badgers leave their setts mate. And they aren't the fleetest of creatures I'm quite sure. I imagine a large predator would quite easily kill one but I'm just speculating here. Either way the badger population is at an unnatural high and TB or not needs reducing for ecological balance. Like I have said, others will know more about the relationship between badger and TB in cattle than me.

 

Why do you think that it is? Why don't badgers where there are the apex predators mentioned not run for cover but will take their chances and stand their ground? What purpose do those balck and white stripes on their heads serve if not as a warning the same as the skunk?

 

Not a lot wants to mess with badgers.

 

 

It's a mute point anyway, cub predation alone would dramatically reduce a population. That effect is clearly seen with hare populations, nothing much in the UK bothers the adult brown hare, but hawks, foxes and badgers will all prey on leverets, good years for all those predators spells bad years for the hares.

[gonetoearth 5,144]

 

 

I don't get how a badger cull will erradicate bTB when there are a whole other multitude of creatures that harbour and spread it. Deer, wild boar, cats, dogs, rats and alpacas are just a few, so why aren't measures being put in place to cull these alongside an improvement of animal husbandry?

 

The previous cull provided conclusive evidence that it made no difference to the numbers of bTB cases in the trialled area. I fear this is just a way of giving in the nutty NFU leadership team and hiding the fact that hundreds of millions of public money has been wasted on research, compensation and development for an innoculation but the best they can come up with is a vaccine that shows a positive result to the bTB test activator. This is just a cheaper alternative to trapping and vaccinating the badgers for which there IS a verified vaccine. Sure Brian May is a bit of a dick but I don't think a cull is the way to manage this. Maybe of the farmers stopped spreading confirmed infected slurry from their pits into their fields as fertiliser that would be a big step in the right direction. Plenty of farmers have badgers living on their land and have yet to see and outbreak case on their land.

 

On your bike!!!! Thinking you may be on the wrong forum there's plenty others out there for people with your views

Oh I'm sorry, do I not hunt and fish? JUst because I am against this cull doesn't make me any less of a pro-hunt than anyone else. If the actual science behind the cull has too many big words for you then just ask and I'll explain them for you or do you just see a free for all go ahead without a care for the consequnces or the ability to see the bigger picture the knock-on effect this will have?

 

Cull doesn't prove (as the actual science states) that badgers aren't to blame for TB spreading. Public AGAIN go nuts about folk being able to shoot anything or hunt anythign with dogs as it serves no purpose. Further restrictions on the hunting laws. Are you daft or just punk?

The badger is the top of the food chain in the british isles they have no natural predators,the wolf was probley the last they have become the victim of their own succes Man has created the perfect enviroment for them short grazed pasture hedgerows. Well mantained woodland, their protection in 73. All leading to the over population no one is advocating the eredication of are badger poulation but they need control at their current levels they are wiping out. Ground nestting birds Were they find it hard to find the ground to hard or saturated the turn to easy options to feed. This can include lambs gamebird etc , TB is another matter like mr may would you like to see the badger population riddeld with bovine tb have you any pratical experience of this plague a creature once infected dies a long lingering death a cull in the right areas and done methodically will create a fire break Is the badger any more impotant that the fox rabbit hare. Red deer fallow deer roe deer etc etc. !!!!! To say farming is the blame Is not a very good argument Management of are country side should be the the most important thing not the blame game Edited May 31, 2013 by gonetoearth

[hutch6 550]

 

 

 

 

 

I don't get how a badger cull will erradicate bTB when there are a whole other multitude of creatures that harbour and spread it. Deer, wild boar, cats, dogs, rats and alpacas are just a few, so why aren't measures being put in place to cull these alongside an improvement of animal husbandry?

 

The previous cull provided conclusive evidence that it made no difference to the numbers of bTB cases in the trialled area. I fear this is just a way of giving in the nutty NFU leadership team and hiding the fact that hundreds of millions of public money has been wasted on research, compensation and development for an innoculation but the best they can come up with is a vaccine that shows a positive result to the bTB test activator. This is just a cheaper alternative to trapping and vaccinating the badgers for which there IS a verified vaccine. Sure Brian May is a bit of a dick but I don't think a cull is the way to manage this. Maybe of the farmers stopped spreading confirmed infected slurry from their pits into their fields as fertiliser that would be a big step in the right direction. Plenty of farmers have badgers living on their land and have yet to see and outbreak case on their land.

To be fair I haven't read enough of the evidence/alternatives to reducing bTB to debate the suggestions your making BUT taking on board the areas you've highlighted such as spreading slurry and animal husbandry why would it make sense to spend even more money vaccinating a pest species rather than culling?

 

 

Badgers are a pest species? Where is that stated? What pest activity do they carry out?

 

Why would it make more sense to wipe out a species that has perfectly adequate vaccine to prevent the individual becoming a host or transport? Under that argument anyone with a common cold should be terminated to prevent the spread of the virus but unlike witht he common cold bTB has a multitude of carriers across various species.

 

The "science" behidn the cull proposition suggests that bTB cases will reduce by 16%. WTF is causing the 84% then and why aren't folk looking at the causes of the larger sections instead of wiping out something that causes just 16%?

 

DEFRA themselves only 5yrs ago stated that the common single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test which is used on British cattle had more than positive results (pardon th pun) - "Many countries have eradicated bTB through the systematic application of the tuberculin skin test alone and the slaughter of all test reactors."

No culling of any wildlife required.

 

http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/control/tuberculin.htm

 

The issue lies in intensive farming which a result fo consumer demands. Demands for cheaper and cheaper produce has meant that farmers have to cram as many animals as they can the turn a profit which is bound to backfire somewhere along the lines and in this case the badger is to blame and must face the brunt of the blinkered people who can not accpet that consumer behaviour has to change in ordre for farming practices to change in order for the catalysts for bTB to be reduced. This will focus on the 84% reduction factors and not the 16% factors.

The only thing the 16% factors focus on is to give some relief to those who wish to blast all and sundry in the countryside to bits who feel they have had a involuntary vaccectomy since the hunting ban came in. They just can't get enough popping off the odd bit here and there, they want the feeling of being able to shoot something different and as shooting badgers hasn't been legal since the last ice age it's new and exciting to them rather than them thinking "Hang on, we had badgers and cattle on this land for millenia and yet this is a relatively new thing?"

 

Vets are even holding their hands up and saying "We are sorry we didn;t spot bTB In cats and dogs earlier!" and the pro-cullers are coming back with "Shhh! There's badgers to kill!"

 

This cull will not serve as anything except to take out a link in our natural wildife which could have disasterous knock effects for other species you ARE allowed to shoot legally.

 

Taking aside your views on the effectiveness of a cull in regards to bTB. Do you genuinly believe in the current numbers that Badgers are not a pest species that don't need controlling?

 

 

My views? These aren't just my views these are the views of the same scientists that carried out the last test cull and the independent scientists that reviewed their findings and the views of the leading ministry scientists that were consulted on the matter but then others with a pro-cull opinion came in to fudge the actual science. DEFRA themselves were looking away from badgers only 5 years ago, nowe all of a sudden they have changed their whole ethos?

 

Controlling. That would be a cull. This isn't going to be a cull though, its more like a persecution.

 

its not hard for a scientist to sit in his lab researching all these figures and coming to a conclusion, to me that means f**k all. you only need to spend a bit of time out in the country day and night almost anywhere in the country to realize badger numbers are too high and they need to be culled.

it makes my blood boil to think people wont back and support farmers that are dying on their feet to protect a pest such as a badger.

 

 

What about deer, dogs, cats rodents and corvid numbers? Are they low enough not to have an effect on the issue?

 

If you think I am not behind the farming industry then you are very much mistaken in a very big way. It is hard factual science saying this won't work and even some farmers are sceptical.

 

To "possibly" prevent 16% of bTB cases. Do these same people buy a new car when it breaks down do to lack of care and maintainance but blame their bald tyres for the issue?

[PoshPikey 560]

Hutch you raise some interesting points and clearly have your mind made up. I am undecided whether it will work but for the sake of our cattle industry we need to try something. Deer travel a long way and are known carriers but the population growth of badgers here in Gloucestershire where I live is unreal. MOST (all but 1 over a large area) of my farming friends have had TB, reactors, culls of their cattle over the last few years and it is no coincidence that the badgers are now on land they didn't used to be on.

 

I think a census is needed as no-one knows how many there are and at the true rate their population is growing. Unlike the deer which are heavily controlled, the rats which are heavily controlled and the other animals you mentioned - the badgers are footloose and fancy free and this seems to be the missing link It might only be 16% of the problem but then again 99% of statistics are horseshit.

[gonetoearth 5,144]

Right so your championing a vaccination programe to vaccinate all of the british badger population or the whole of the bovine herd in the uk. Is brain may going to foot the bill and find all the set locations in the uk trap and inject or sit in a hide waiting to abush old bill while he shuffles across the meadow. The reality is we have bovine tb at empidemic levels and its costing billions Mr badger needs controlling there is is march tomorrow hope you attend

[hutch6 550]

 

 

 

I don't get how a badger cull will erradicate bTB when there are a whole other multitude of creatures that harbour and spread it. Deer, wild boar, cats, dogs, rats and alpacas are just a few, so why aren't measures being put in place to cull these alongside an improvement of animal husbandry?

 

The previous cull provided conclusive evidence that it made no difference to the numbers of bTB cases in the trialled area. I fear this is just a way of giving in the nutty NFU leadership team and hiding the fact that hundreds of millions of public money has been wasted on research, compensation and development for an innoculation but the best they can come up with is a vaccine that shows a positive result to the bTB test activator. This is just a cheaper alternative to trapping and vaccinating the badgers for which there IS a verified vaccine. Sure Brian May is a bit of a dick but I don't think a cull is the way to manage this. Maybe of the farmers stopped spreading confirmed infected slurry from their pits into their fields as fertiliser that would be a big step in the right direction. Plenty of farmers have badgers living on their land and have yet to see and outbreak case on their land.

On your bike!!!! Thinking you may be on the wrong forum there's plenty others out there for people with your views

Oh I'm sorry, do I not hunt and fish? JUst because I am against this cull doesn't make me any less of a pro-hunt than anyone else. If the actual science behind the cull has too many big words for you then just ask and I'll explain them for you or do you just see a free for all go ahead without a care for the consequnces or the ability to see the bigger picture the knock-on effect this will have?

 

Cull doesn't prove (as the actual science states) that badgers aren't to blame for TB spreading. Public AGAIN go nuts about folk being able to shoot anything or hunt anythign with dogs as it serves no purpose. Further restrictions on the hunting laws. Are you daft or just punk?

The badger is the top of the food chain in the british isles they have no natural predators,the wolf was probley the last they have become the victim of their own succes Man has created the perfect enviroment for them short grazed pasture hedgerows. Well mantained woodland, their protection in 73. All leading to the over population no one is advocating the eredication of are badger poulation but they need control at their current levels they are wiping out. Ground nestting birds Were they find it hard to find the ground to hard or saturated the turn to easy options to feed. This can include lambs gamebird etc , TB is another matter like mr may would you like to see the badger population riddeld with bovine tb have you any pratical experience of this plague a creature once infected dies a long lingering death a cull in the right areas and done methodically will create a fire break Is the badger any more impotant that the fox rabbit hare. Red deer fallow deer roe deer etc etc. !!!!! To say farming is the blame Is not a very good argument Management of are country side should be the the most important thing not the blame game

 

 

A fire break? A fire break to what? The farms? Other badger populations? What about all of the other carriers that can come and go and spread as they please without badgers even being in the vacinity including our dogs and other pets? What happens when the badgers are reduced to 10% of their current population and farmers in "clean" areas are still getting bTB cases due to the other carriers coming into their land or their own husbandry practices? Wipe out the badgers altogether just to make sure?

 

Fox - indigenous

Red Deer - indigenous

Roe Deer - indigenous

Badger - indigenous

 

More important than

 

Fallow deer - introduced.

Rabbit - introduced.

Hare - introduced.

 

Although the natural flow of food seems to present a welcomed aquisition of the hare and rabbit it still means that lower natural species that have to to comete alongside these are put under strin and have had to adapt and possibly cause further damage to other species whilst providing beneficial opportunities for those above them in the food chain. Surely the opportunity to eat rabbit and hare provides badgers with a better and more chance of succesful survival just as much as the land management.

 

Who provides the most management for the countryside GTE?

 

You can shout and celebrate all you want that the cull is going ahead but as the science shows now this is heading for disaster, Disaster for the farming public image (it is them that have kicked and screamed for the cull again), disaster for the badgers (ultimately) and disaster for the whole hunting, shooting, running and jumping.

 

The tories said they'd review the hunting ban - they haven't. They've allowed this to allow a few select to go hunting something that has been protected for over 40yrs and this will only back fire on them when it shows the science was right and the party that stands up and says "following the blood thirst disaster that was the badger cull we will ban ALL hunting in ALL forms with the implementation of correct natural management if you vote for us". In they come and bye-bye our way of life.

[hutch6 550]

Hutch you raise some interesting points and clearly have your mind made up. I am undecided whether it will work but for the sake of our cattle industry we need to try something. Deer travel a long way and are known carriers but the population growth of badgers here in Gloucestershire where I live is unreal. MOST (all but 1 over a large area) of my farming friends have had TB, reactors, culls of their cattle over the last few years and it is no coincidence that the badgers are now on land they didn't used to be on.

 

I think a census is needed as no-one knows how many there are and at the true rate their population is growing. Unlike the deer which are heavily controlled, the rats which are heavily controlled and the other animals you mentioned - the badgers are footloose and fancy free and this seems to be the missing link It might only be 16% of the problem but then again 99% of statistics are horseshit.

 

I get that there WILL be a few cases where badgers have been the cullprit (no pun intended), but the 16% reduction figure is the one brought to the tabel by the NFU, DEFRA and the Minister of Rural Affairs. That is the figure the guys that are championing the cull through parliament are saying like it is some miracle cure. It's 16% for heaven's sake!! It's not as though it's a large figure. The species has been getting blamed for decades, they had a cull which showed it did nothing but reduce badger numbers not bTB and they are now asking for a nationwide cull to reduce cases by 16% as they can't get their heads around other animals carrying the desease.

 

Isle of Man has bTB but has no badgers, how strange. The Welsh assembly has refused a badger cull so what happens when those Welsh badgers start wandering about again as they don't understand country borders or county divisions?

 

A farmer by the name of Dick Roper had bTB on his farm so he did some digging about and found his soil lacked certain nutrients after his maize harvests. He started giving the local badgers peanuts with mineral suppliments in and also mineral licks to his cows. Hey presto, no more bTB. Don't believe me, look it up on line I think he farmed in Eastington.

[PoshPikey 560]

"all the other animals that come come and go as they please". Cats, dogs, alpacas, wild boar, deer and rats.

 

right take each in turn. TB in domestic dogs and cats is tiny. Alpacas are generally fenced into small paddocks and not nosing round dairy farms late at night. Wild boar - in the FoD yes they roam but then there aren't many dairies in that neck of the woods. deer = heavily controlled. rats - not known to travel vast distances and although they might act as vectors I should imagine that TB would kill them before they get too far. If you want us to recognise your argument you need to be objective and see how daft some of your points are.

 

I am unsure why we protect badgers and not rats - are we trying to save the earthworm?

 

I understand that TB reactors we use on cattle are not effective on badgers and the only true way to find out if a badger is a vector is by checking the lining tissue of its lungs but unfortunately to do that you need to either kill or anaesthetise it first. For that cost - shoot the bloody thing and then we don't need to waste BILLIOn more on tests, trials, vet fees for our cattle industry.

[hutch6 550]

Right so your championing a vaccination programe to vaccinate all of the british badger population or the whole of the bovine herd in the uk. Is brain may going to foot the bill and find all the set locations in the uk trap and inject or sit in a hide waiting to abush old bill while he shuffles across the meadow. The reality is we have bovine tb at empidemic levels and its costing billions Mr badger needs controlling there is is march tomorrow hope you attend

"According to Defra (www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/research/vaccine.htm) Developing a TB vaccine for badgers and cattle is a long-term goal and a substantial part of the Defra research programme focuses on this. Total investment (since 1998) in vaccine development reached more than £17.8 million by the end of March 2008. Over £5.5 million was invested in cattle and badger vaccine research in 2007/2008. We are told that real progress has been made yet a vaccination for cattle is STILL not available as efforts have, instead, been concentrated on a vaccine for badgers."

 

Chuff knows how much they are investing these days but to be focussing on badgers instead of cattle where as all you have to do is vaccinate cattle at birth or round them up (heck of a lot easier than trying to corall badgers) is just a waste of public money and this is the consequence.