f****d right off

[Ratman2 2]

The problem is that once you give total protection to an animal, it then increases in numbers beyond all reason and sense, and it wasn't as if badgers were in danger of extinction anyway, unlike the otter. Unfortunately the powers that be and the do gooders are unable to see or realise that sometimes a cull is necessary: and what did happen to the proposed badger cull on the grounds of them spreading TB? I've heard nothing about that recently.

 

Badger culling already goes on and has done for years,

we all turn a blind eye to a worthy animal being "GASSED" IN THEIR THOUSANDS" by the state

 

Would you like to elaborate and substantiate your claim mate. The gassing of any animal has been banned for a long time now, unless I mistaken.

[Guest joe ox]

One law for them and another for us don't seem right to me

 

Politics and money make it right!

[Malt 379]

The problem is that once you give total protection to an animal, it then increases in numbers beyond all reason and sense, and it wasn't as if badgers were in danger of extinction anyway, unlike the otter. Unfortunately the powers that be and the do gooders are unable to see or realise that sometimes a cull is necessary: and what did happen to the proposed badger cull on the grounds of them spreading TB? I've heard nothing about that recently.

 

Badger culling already goes on and has done for years,

we all turn a blind eye to a worthy animal being "GASSED" IN THEIR THOUSANDS" by the state

 

Would you like to elaborate and substantiate your claim mate. The gassing of any animal has been banned for a long time now, unless I mistaken.

Aren't you still allowed to gas rabbits?

[Ratman2 2]

Whole streets and communities get moved on forcibly just so that the government/developers can build a new concrete jungle or a housing estate that the locals can never afford to buy…Why should the badger get preferential treatment?...Re-home them and send the bill to the developers!...As for the fecking newts!....Get the local school kiddies out to catch them all up and stick them in a jar while the ditch gets cleaned/dredged, the kids will learn something as well.. ....Rant over...

 

Good rant mate. After the floods of last year, many locals are still at risk of it happening again due to Unnatural England refusing to allow a dyke to be cleared out as it’s the home of some voles.

Now it seems a bugger to me that rodents get preferential treatment over tax and rate paying people.

[Ratman2 2]

The problem is that once you give total protection to an animal, it then increases in numbers beyond all reason and sense, and it wasn't as if badgers were in danger of extinction anyway, unlike the otter. Unfortunately the powers that be and the do gooders are unable to see or realise that sometimes a cull is necessary: and what did happen to the proposed badger cull on the grounds of them spreading TB? I've heard nothing about that recently.

 

Badger culling already goes on and has done for years,

we all turn a blind eye to a worthy animal being "GASSED" IN THEIR THOUSANDS" by the state

 

Would you like to elaborate and substantiate your claim mate. The gassing of any animal has been banned for a long time now, unless I mistaken.

Aren't you still allowed to gas rabbits?

 

I may be wrong but I don't think you can.

[Foxgun Tom 75]

This is bollocks!! Badgers are not endangered or rare, What's happening here is fecking progress??, wether we like it or not?? As some-one who's studied Countryside Management & Conservation plus Land Devolopment, Policy and History, at the Scottish Agrculture College, Ayr (Auchencruive), this is not a conservation issue, its about money!!! and its got feck all to do with respecting wildlife!! If these developers had came to some of us!! before the Badger Act was put in place we'd have jumped at the chance to help remove them, that!! being the case lets not be hypocritical If they're being a pest for whatever reason remove them!! If they're becoming endangered thats the time to give them protection not now!!!!! when theyre thriving and causing untold cost to dairy farmers and the like!! In some instances the only good badger is a dead one just ask certain farmers who've had to destroy pedigree dairy herds with decades of breeding due to bovine TB

 

Tom

Edited March 28, 2008 by Foxgun Tom

[sue 1]

i dont think its right or wrong on this point , and i am not saying they should be given priority over homes but in some places badges are thriving and other places they are still falling ,we are all hunting people and we all understand we need to keep a well balance .

[Guest joe ox]

Well said Foxgun Tom.

[Ratman2 2]

This is bollocks!! Badgers are not endangered or rare, What's happening here is fecking progress??, wether we like it or not?? As some-one who's studied Countryside Management & Conservation plus Land Devolopment, Policy and History, at the Scottish Agrculture College, Ayr (Auchencruive), this is not a conservation issue, its about money!!! and its got feck all to do with respecting wildlife!! If these developers had came to some of us!! before the Badger Act was put in place we'd have jumped at the chance to remove them, that!! being the case lets not be hypocriticalIf they're being a pest for whatever reason remove them!! If they're becoming endangered thats the time to give them protection not now!!!!! when theyre thriving and causing untold cost to dairy farmers and the like!! In some instances the only good badger is a dead one just ask certain farmers who've had to destroy pedigree dairy herds with decades of breeding due to bovine TB

 

Tom

 

Excellent Tom, bloody well said. Round here, night pigs are out numbering charlies.

[Foxgun Tom 75]

A summarry of the Krebs report, to Defra and taken off the Defra website

 

Tom

 

Report by the Independent Scientific Review Group on TB in cattle and badgers

A report by the Independent Scientific Review Group on TB in Cattle and Badgers, chaired by Professor John Krebs, was published on 16 December 1997. This is an executive summary of the report. Copies of the full report are available from Defra Publications.

 

Executive summary

Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis). It is currently a relatively uncommon disease in Great Britain as a whole, with new confirmed cases occurring in about 0.4% of cattle herds each year. However, the disease is becoming more common, especially in South-West England, its traditional stronghold, where new cases occur in more than 1% of herds each year, in some parts of Wales and in the West Midlands. The control of TB in cattle is a complex problem and there is no single solution. We recommend a combination of approaches on different timescales.

 

For affected farmers, bovine TB imposes very significant economic and welfare consequences, and for the animals involved there is also an important welfare cost. Furthermore, on behalf of the taxpayer MAFF currently spends about £16 million per year on control and related issues, including tuberculin testing carried out according to an EU directive. If the disease were to become more common, these costs would increase and there could be significant trade implications.

 

Human TB is primarily caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, although M. bovis can be involved. Currently, as a result of pasteurisation of milk and tuberculin testing of cattle, there is a negligible risk to the human population of Great Britain from M. bovis (32 confirmed cases in the UK in 1995); but the disease has the potential to be a significant health risk.

 

Cattle in other countries in Europe and elsewhere also have infections of M. bovis, notably New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, Italy and Spain.

 

The sum of evidence strongly supports the view that, in Britain, badgers are a significant source of infection in cattle. Most of this evidence is indirect, consisting of correlations rather than demonstrations of cause and effect; but in total the available evidence, including the effects of completely removing badgers from certain areas, is compelling.

It is not, however, possible to state quantitatively what contribution badgers make to cattle infection, because the relevant data have not been collected and analysed. Collection of the relevant data, statistical analysis and the use of modern molecular techniques could resolve this question and we recommend that these should be high priorities for MAFF. Other wildlife species also carry the disease, and the possibility of some contribution from these species cannot be ignored.

 

Recognising the importance of badgers as a source of infection, over the past two decades, MAFF has implemented, in succession, a variety of policies for killing badgers in order to control the disease in cattle. However, it is not possible to compare the effectiveness of these different policies; nor is it possible to compare any of them with the impact of not killing badgers at all, because there have been no proper experiments.

 

However, the indication is that more severe culling policies involving complete, or near complete, removal of badgers from an area, are more effective at reducing the herd breakdown rate than is less complete removal. An attempt to target the control at infected badgers only (the ‘live test trial’) was unsuccessful because of the low sensitivity of the test for TB in badgers.

We recommend that MAFF should set up an experiment to quantify the impact of culling badgers. The experiment, in which farmers should play a role, should involve three treatments: proactive culling of badgers, reactive culling following the identification of TB in cattle and no culling. Both of the culling policies should include lactating sows.

 

The experiment should be overseen and analysed by an independent Expert Group. The experiment will enable MAFF to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of killing badgers to control TB in cattle. The cumulative number of badgers killed in the five years of the experiment is unlikely to be substantially different from the number killed in the present interim policy (roughly 2,000 a year on the basis of 1996 figures). Moreover, it is likely to be significantly less than the number killed in road traffic accidents.

 

Detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of TB in cattle during the period 1987 to 1996 shows that in some places past history of infection is a good predictor of future risk: repeated infections and infections on neighbouring farms are principally restricted to a small number of areas in Great Britain. It is in these areas of repeated occurrence of TB that the impact of treatments involving culling badgers would be greatest and most quickly seen.

 

We therefore recommend that the experiment outlined above is carried out in a minimum of 30 10km by 10km highest risk areas (‘hot-spots’). The precise areas to be included should be finally determined by the Expert Group. Equal numbers of hot-spots should be assigned at random to each of the three treatments.

 

For the remainder of the country, we recommend that no culling is carried out. Outside the hot-spot areas, the risk of repeat infection or of neighbouring farm infection is relatively low and therefore the potential benefits of culling badgers are also low. The Expert Group should, however, keep the situation under review and retain the option to recommend recruitment of additional areas into the experiment if appropriate.

 

Although the route of transmission from badgers to cattle is not known, simple husbandry methods to separate badgers and cattle could have a significant role in reducing risk. The current MAFF guidelines are apparently not widely heeded by the farming industry, nor has there been any attempt to ascertain the impact of husbandry on risk.

 

We recommend that outside the hot-spot areas the farming industry itself should take the lead in carrying out a proper experimental comparison of the impact of a small number of simple husbandry techniques. MAFF’s role should be to provide advice/analysis on experimental design and results and to provide incentives to the industry to participate and subsequently to adopt best practice. Husbandry may well play an important role as part of the long-term solution.

 

In the long run, the best prospect for control of bovine TB is to develop a vaccine for cattle. This is a long-term (more than ten years) strategy and success cannot be guaranteed. However, targets and milestones can be identified to monitor and evaluate progress at five yearly intervals. We recommend that the development of a cattle vaccine and an associated diagnostic test to distinguish infected from vaccinated cattle should be a high priority for MAFF’s long-term research strategy.

 

A badger vaccine, although posing greater technical problems in terms of both development and delivery, should also be kept as an option. During the next five years much of the basic research required will be relevant to both badgers and cattle.

 

Proper co-ordination of the research will be essential. In developing its research strategy MAFF should take into account work on human TB including genome sequencing, and work on animal vaccines and diagnostics in other countries. Industrial involvement should also be explored.

 

We recommend that MAFF’s future strategy for research on, and control of, bovine TB should take account of the following points:

 

(i) MAFF should ensure that it commissions research from the best groups in the research community;

 

(ii) there should be a better co-ordination of modelling and data collection to ensure that the appropriate data are collected and that best use is made of them in analyses;

 

(iii) data should be freely available to facilitate the best analysis and to engage the wider research community;

 

(iv) there should be better co-ordination of MAFF-sponsored research on TB and the work of other public funders (e.g. Research Councils) and industry; and

 

(v) the total amount spent on TB research (£1.7 million) as well as the relative amount (nine times more is spent on control than on research) should be reviewed in the light of the costs of TB control and the potential returns from research. The industry could contribute to the costs of control as they do in New Zealand, where the absolute amount spent on research by the Government is three times higher than in Britain and the amount of Government money spent on control is just under twice that spent on research

 

 

Page last modified: 19 December 2005

Page published: 5 February 2003

Edited March 28, 2008 by Foxgun Tom

[sue 1]

totally agree with you tom ,more should be done its about time the government did more into eradicating tb in this country

[Foxgun Tom 75]

Another interesting page from the Defra website!!

 

Tom

 

Bovine TB: Badger protection legislation

Badgers were first given protection under the Badgers Act 1973 and badger setts under the Badgers Act 1991. The Protection of Badgers Act 1992 consolidated the earlier legislation.

 

Summary of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992

 

The 1992 Act makes it an offence to:

1. kill, injure or take a badger

2. cruelly ill-treat any badger

3. interfere with a badger sett

 

 

Licensing PowersUnder the 1992 Act, licences may be issued by the Agricultural Departments (in England, this is Defra, in Wales, the National Assembly for Wales Agriculture Department and in Scotland, the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD)) for the following purposes;

 

a/ to interfere with badger setts for the purpose of:

 

1. any agricultural or forestry operation;

2. any operation to maintain or improve any existing watercourse or drainage works, or to construct new works required for the drainage of land, including works of defence against seawater or tidal water;

3. controlling foxes in order to protect livestock and penned game.

b/ to kill or take badgers or to interfere with their setts for the purpose of;

 

1. preventing serious damage to land, crops, poultry or any other form of property;

2. preventing the spread of disease.

 

Assessing Licence Applications

 

In England and Wales, applications for a licence are assessed by Natural England. In Scotland, SEERAD Area Offices and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) assess licence applications. This process involves a site visit and discussion with the applicant. These organisations will report to the relevant Animal Health Divisional Office (AHDO) in England and the Agricultural Departments in Wales and Scotland, which then determine the application.

 

Licences for the purpose of preventing damage will be issued where the relevant bodies are satisfied that:

 

1. the level of damage is sufficiently serious to justify the issue of a licence;

2. other methods of control have been shown to be ineffective or impractical and not just difficult to implement;

3. licensed action will be successful in reducing any damage that might be being caused.

 

Although there is no provision for a closed season under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, the badger breeding season is taken into account when determining licence applications.

 

Additional Licensing Authorities

 

Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales and SNH, are also licensing authorities under the 1992 Act. They are responsible for the issue of licences for the following purposes:

 

1. scientific or educational purposes for the conservation of badgers;

2. any zoological gardens or collection;

3. ringing or marking badgers;

4. any developments as defined in S.55(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990;

5. preservation, or archaeological investigation, of a monument scheduled under S.1 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Area Act 1970;

6. investigating whether an offence has been committed or gathering evidence in connection with any proceedings before any Court;

7. controlling foxes in order to protect released game or wildlife.

 

This is a summary only. The Protection of Badgers Act 1992 should be referred to for the exact wording.

 

 

 

Page last modified: 23 January 2007

Edited March 28, 2008 by Foxgun Tom

[CarlC 0]

I know some will call me a anti and what ever but what i done i think is right. Well anyway there is a big developement down the road from me and last summer i brought to there attention of a badger set. They took photos and stoped the development. They put a cordon around it and workred around it for a bit. I just come back from that area and they have dug to 10 ft of the set. I under stand the legal limit is 30 ft. I wnt up to tell them and they said they never known it was a set there even though i told them last summer. With out sounding like a hippy iv had enough of these people and there lack of respect for our wildlife. I know of two other sets on the site and one other where they got permission from the courts to move the badgers from the area and the other 2 sets are no longer in use. Deer have had to cross the busy road to find somewhere else to live as they have distroyed all there food and cover only to be knocked down and killed. Rabbits have been gassed from there warrens. This was once a huge steel works years ago and nature reclamed it after it closed and got demolished. It had huge numbers of everything, the whole 1125 ares site is now nothing no trees grass and just a few bunnies, charlies and this set left. Sorry for sounding like a hippy but just because i hunt dont mean i dont care about wildlife and the animals i do hunt. Is there anything i can do or shall i just let it happen. Im not going to the sspca though they can f**k them self.

This sort of thing Ps me off asweel, they treat animals like crap just becuase they want to build house on the naimlas land.All animlas deserve respect.I`m sick and tired off the council cutting trees down and ruining animals habitate just to build houses on em.Something needs to be down.Give em some bad press mate take some pictures of em.

Give em hell

 

Best O luck

[Ratman2 2]

I know some will call me a anti and what ever but what i done i think is right. Well anyway there is a big developement down the road from me and last summer i brought to there attention of a badger set. They took photos and stoped the development. They put a cordon around it and workred around it for a bit. I just come back from that area and they have dug to 10 ft of the set. I under stand the legal limit is 30 ft. I wnt up to tell them and they said they never known it was a set there even though i told them last summer. With out sounding like a hippy iv had enough of these people and there lack of respect for our wildlife. I know of two other sets on the site and one other where they got permission from the courts to move the badgers from the area and the other 2 sets are no longer in use. Deer have had to cross the busy road to find somewhere else to live as they have distroyed all there food and cover only to be knocked down and killed. Rabbits have been gassed from there warrens. This was once a huge steel works years ago and nature reclamed it after it closed and got demolished. It had huge numbers of everything, the whole 1125 ares site is now nothing no trees grass and just a few bunnies, charlies and this set left. Sorry for sounding like a hippy but just because i hunt dont mean i dont care about wildlife and the animals i do hunt. Is there anything i can do or shall i just let it happen. Im not going to the sspca though they can f**k them self.

This sort of thing Ps me off asweel, they treat animals like crap just becuase they want to build house on the naimlas land.All animlas deserve respect.I`m sick and tired off the council cutting trees down and ruining animals habitate just to build houses on em.Something needs to be down.Give em some bad press mate take some pictures of em.

Give em hell I rather think anti's do this.

 

Best O luck

 

How's the crayfish hunting coming on mate, have you shot any yet???

[J Darcy 5,871]

Bit of an offshoot to this im afraid.

Who saw the news am today about the highways agency!

They refused to clean out a ditch which had caused flooding to homes, in Chichester I think, because there 'may be' newts in it!

Dont think the housholders are gonna be that worried about a few newts!

Too damn right!! Newts were here before us and have more rights than us to "survive" ...Newts, and all amphibians for that matter, are in severe decline...lets look after their habitat...the rest they can do themselves........long live the GC Newt...