Badgers – trial shoots to go ahead

The cull shouldn’t go ahead. This is planet earth not an operating theatre.  Do we want to live in a very safe padded cell? But more than that we share this plane,t it is not ours just because we mostly act like it is.

38 degrees should definitely get involved in this. It would be fantastic if there could be a massive coordinated action with other groups and animal welfare organisations.

Yet another appalling decision by DEFRA that is not based on fact, science or overwhelming public opinion.

please lets get behind this and stop this cruelty, we all know why this is happening, profits for certain area of the food industry. poor badges. hate this world we live in

save our badges, please lets start something to say we are fully against this and any other form of cruelty xx

thanks for all the work, u have done so far xx

Most studies seem to blame excessive movement of cattle rather than badgers.

http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/research/summary/se3229.htm

sorry i was typing fast i meant badgers, sorrry my bad xx im just really angry about this

having worked in the agricultural industry from 1979 to 89 even the farmers could not decided amongst them selves even back then there were the fours and against culling the argument has gone on long enough and still we have two camps as far apart as ever and only speculation rumour old wives tales and very little evidence culling works 

IMO they should concentrate in rolling out the cow vaccine countrywide, before they start culling these iconic and beautiful innocent creatures. They have enough to put up with, what with habitat loss, urban encroachment. And those human scum, who dig them up for ‘badger baiting’. Now I know this is a very emotive subject, but surely a nationwide cull is the very last resort. Common sense and a compassion for our natural wildlife is called for in this instance. Obviously if cattle are contacting TB, could it not be other cattle that are the carriers and not the Badger?  I am sure we will hear plenty more about this. I, for one am on the side of the under dog in this case – ‘The Badger’.

I can remember a time, just 15 years ago, when we had unpasteurised milk delivered to our door here in Suffolk. That doesn’t happen now. The protection of badgers, an animal with no natural predators can only lead to an imbalance.

38 degrees needs to stop dragging it’s feet and get this protest underway!

You don’t need to wait for the furious opinions of your members – you know what it will be!

Let’s get this show on the road!

Our own law protects badgers and says in no un-certain terms that killing badgers is illegal!

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/51/crossheading/offences

I don’t see how it is justified – mass killing of one of our , up to now, most protected species with little likelihood of success. It looks very like ‘being seen to be doing something’. Anyway, that Caroline Spelman, first she tries to take our woodlands, then she wants to shoot our badgers – what next? Trap all the nightingales?

do badgers contribute to the economy? no.
Do cows? Oh f*ck aye.Are badgers carrying the disease? MaybeDoes Culling badgers effect our economy in a negative way? No.Does culling cows? Yes.Allow the farmers to cull badgers that are shown to pose a threat to their livestocks. Badgers found on the farms should be caught and tested for the disease atleast once a month. (a sample of the population not all of them) and if they are found to have the disease then the farmers should be given permission to cull the badgers on their land only and only until the next testing due date where the badgers are captured and tested again. Any badger captured that is found to have the disease must be destroyed humanely. 

Heard RSPCA spokesperson today saying research into bovine TB was cut in the last round of cuts. MISTAKE! Badger cull sounds to me like a short- term solution when what we need is a long term solution – which might cost some of my tax pennies.

No badger shooting, better control of cattle movement before even contemplating badger control. And vaccination should be the first option.

No badger shooting!

I am opposed to shooting the badgers.  

I am opposed to shooting the badgers.

To cull a wild animal for so little gain is completely senseless. I think that 38 Degrees should get involved in this. As to what to do instead I think all three of the alternative measures mentioned in this blog post should be taken. The main thing is a vaccine for the cows, but in the meantime vaccinating badgers is a good idea and taking better care of the cows is essential.

This cull has no control and no provable positive effect, The government says it’s a trial but freely admits it has no way of telling if it will make any difference. 
Surely even the government cannot overturn a law like this without proper evidence and real scientific research pointing to a true benefit to it’s research. This action must be illegal simply because there are so many holes in the research.
  

It is not fair to kill innocent wild animals just to make sure that greedy humans can make some money! I do not think there is any grey area here! Please get involved and protect them!

This is wrong. So we dispose of wildlife on the basis of unproven scientific evidence for the sake of farmers? I will back any campaign 38 degrees gets involved in.

This cull has no control and no provable positive effect, The government says it’s a trial but freely admits it has no way of telling if it will make any difference. Surely even the government cannot overturn a law like this without proper evidence and real scientific research pointing to a true benefit to it’s research. This action must be illegal simply because there are so many holes in the research.

Dear Robert G Long   because some farmers I know tell me the badgers suckle from the dairy cows !!
If you watch  a herd of cows and a flock of crows you will see the crows picking through the cow dung  hopping on the cows and wiping their dungy bills all over the cows near there face where a cow could lick themself Then they fly off to another herd  and hop all over those cows too etc So why dont we “cull” the crows !!  The culling is nothing to do with TB

So many people saying a cull is wrong, and I am one of them, so please lets do something about this madness. Can we work a little 38 Degrees magic and prevent who knows how many of these beautiful creatures being killed for nothing? Someone on another post on Facebook said this wasn’t important, but I strongly believe it is. Let’s see if we can get them to pull a handbrake turn on this. We’re supposed to be a nation of animal lovers… let’s show them we are! It’s disgusting and must be stopped.

We know this is wrong… killing is always wrong… and if you love the natural things around you and care about the world we live in then you will instictively understand this statement… we don’t need the burden of proof ; we need empathy.

As long as most of us want to consume dairy products, we do need to take seriously the difficulties suffered by dairy farmers.  TB is a serious problem and it’s a horrible experience for farmers to go through having TB in their herd.  So, clearly, it’s a problem that needs thought.  The problem is that everyone wants to feel better by finding a solution, and the ‘obvious’ one is to get rid of badgers – much simpler than reducing cattle movements or researching other methods (including vaccines) to reduce the problem.  There is little evidence that culling badgers significantly reduces TB in cattle (because of the movement of badgers who’ve been disturbed etc) and what is particularly concerning is that what is advocated is wholesale slaughter, not even testing and treating or killing actually affected badgers.  We seem to have gone through so many trials in small areas and there’s never anything conclusive, so why we would permit shooting (with the horrible likelihood of injured badgers who aren’t killed outright) is beyond me.

Is there any evidence that it is not the cows who are giving badgers TB? This article has some interesting points that can be raised against the totally unnecessary and ill-thought out culling ‘experiment’.  http://www.badgerland.co.uk/animals/threats/tuberculosis.html

Please do get involved 38 degrees!

Scientific research from Imperial College
http://www.badger.org.uk/_Attachments/Resources/544_S4.pdf 

Culling badgers will exacerbate bovine TB, and not control it. The government has failed to ask DEFRA to investigate all the causes of bovine TB, of which badgers are less than 20% of the causes. The other causes are unknown. The Culling of badgers will weaken the surviving animals, making them more susceptible to TB.
 

Get involved 38 degrees, the cull is wrong!

Letter in the Times 13th July 2011 from members of the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) who were responsible for the report on the Randomised Badger Culling Trials which ended in 2007 http://www.badger.org.uk/_Attachments/Resources/549_S4.pdf

The real reason why the dairy industry is plagued by TB – is the farming methods they refuse to change.  ”They are ignoring the 10 year study by top scientists which established that badger ‘culling’ will not control TB in cattle. This means many animals will be cruelly killed to no purpose – other than mollifying farmers who refuse to change their ways.” 

Won’t it be more effective to pool resources on issues like this one?  See http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/badgers/index.php

See below for the summary of what we know from trials to date- in short, they recommend higher standards of husbandry, not further culling. Interesting that the top links in Google to the Defra archives are currently ‘broken due to site updating’, so it takes a bit more burrowing within the Defra site to find this… -Nice timing, if you’re a member of the Governmental anti-badger lobby!
From the Krebs
report…

(ii) Summary of Scientific FindingsBackground1. Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is a serious disease of cattle that
has re-emerged as a
major problem for British farmers. Badgers (Meles meles) are
implicated in spreading the
infectious agent (the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis) to cattle. Hence, between 1973 and
1998, cattle-based TB controls were supplemented by various forms
of badger culling.
2. A scientific review of the issue, chaired by Professor John
Krebs and completed
in 1997, concluded that there was “compelling”
evidence that badgers were involved in
transmitting infection to cattle. However, it noted that the
development of TB policy was
hampered because the effectiveness of badger culling as a control
measure could not be
quantified with data then available. Krebs’ team therefore
recommended establishment of a
large-scale field trial of the effects of badger culling on cattle
TB incidence, to be overseen
by a group of independent experts.
3. The Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB (ISG) was formed
in 1998 and
recognised the need for a broader remit than that anticipated by
Krebs. In addition to
designing and overseeing the Randomised Badger Culling Trial
(RBCT), the ISG identified
and initiated a broad array of research related to the diagnosis,
pathogenesis, dynamics and
control of TB in cattle and badgers. This report – the ISG’s
6th and final,
formal report
– describes the outcome of this research, which provides a
previously unavailable scientific
basis for the design of future TB control
policy.

Conclusions and recommendations15. Detailed evaluation of RBCT and other scientific data
highlights the limitations of
badger culling as a control measure for cattle TB. The overall
benefits of proactive culling
were modest (representing an estimated 14 breakdowns prevented
after culling 1,000km2 for
five years), and were realised only after coordinated and
sustained effort. While many other
approaches to culling can be considered, available data suggest
that none is likely to generate
benefits substantially greater than those recorded in the RBCT,
and many are likely to cause
detrimental effects. Given its high costs and low benefits we
therefore conclude that badger
culling is unlikely to contribute usefully to the control of
cattle TB in Britain, and recommend
that TB control efforts focus on measures other than badger
culling (Chapter 10).
16. In contrast with the situation regarding badger culling, our
data and modelling
suggest that substantial reductions in cattle TB incidence could
be achieved by improving
cattle-based control measures. Such measures include the
introduction of more thorough
controls on cattle movement through zoning or herd attestation,
strategic use of the IFN test
in both routine and pre-movement testing, quarantine of purchased
cattle, shorter testing
intervals, careful attention to breakdowns in areas that are
currently low risk, and wholeherd
slaughter for chronically affected herds (Chapters 7 and 10).
17. Continued research will be critical to refine cattle-based TB
control strategies.
Further refinement and field experience of the IFN test, more
detailed interrogation of
existing data, particularly cattle testing and tracing data, will
be of value. The involvement
of independent expert scientists, as a complement to the excellent
scientific expertise
already available to Defra through its Executive Agencies, will
ensure the application of
the most appropriate and up-to-date approaches and is likely to
generate the most effective
control strategies.

I woundn’t support this campaign – farmers have a legitimate problem.
Stick to the big issues.

There is considerable scientific evidence that a
badger cull will not be effective in controlling bovine TB. Indeed
through the ‘perturbation effect’ its quite likely that one of the disease
vectors will in fact be spread more widely.

Since an injectable badger vaccine is
available now – it’s currently being trialled by the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust – http://bit.ly/pquCIs – surely the sensible emphasis should be on the development
of a cattle vaccine as a matter of priority for a long-term solution to
bovine TB?

Lets get involved and halt another ill-conceived environmental disaster.

What I don’t understand is that badgers are a protected species. How can they get away with culling a protected species?

Badger culling is just a short term solution to a long term
problem. We need to take a new approach to fixing TB. Badger culling didn’t
work in the past so why would it work now. Maybe we should focus on the bigger
issue which is our ridiculously high consumptions from the result of our over populated country. 
 

38 Degrees should stand up against the culling. As many other posters have said more eloquently than I can, scientific evidence suggests badger culling will not protect cows from TB infection, and may even exacerbate the problem. No to the badger cull.

YES 38 DEGREES SHOULD GET INVOLVED. NO QUESTION.

We have until spring next year, we must stop this. 16% of people believe there should be a cull, 67% believe that badgers should be vaccinated. The country and farmers will pay twice – once for the cull and once for its failure. They have made a decision not only unpopular with the people of the country by a decision against science. The Government have said that they will also introduce stringent new cattle
controls, so in other words there is no scientific control. no one will know
what works or doesn’t work. Any drop in TB will be blamed on badgers. The country and farmers will pay twice, once for the cull and once for its failure. 

Please, please get involved to stop this horrendous plan from ever going ahead.   It is unthinkable that wild animals should be exterminated to provide unproven benefits to cows, many of who will be eventually slaughtered anyway .  The only difference with TB infected cows is that it is not the meat eaters who pay the farmers but the tax payers.  We seem to have surplus cash to spend on arts projects- why not just redirect some of this money to pay the farmers for their infected cows until a viable vaccine is developed for bovines.           

Please hurry up and get involved, Badgers are protected that should be from everyone, they should be vaccinated and the farmers should be supported in making the changes recommended by the vast amount of research done on this. THEY NEED OUR HELP AND OUR VOICE NOW!

If the start date is next spring then we all have some work to do. Contact your MP’s, help 38 degrees fight this thing and lets get on with pushing the cull into the history books

Badger cull must be stopped.  I could talk for an hour about reasons and thinking but they’re already clearly stated above and elsewhere. It’s a disgrace.  What’s even worse is that the British Veterinary Association BACKS the cull???!!!!

Considering the Government do not seem to care that the brown hare, which is also in decline, is annually hunted by foreign visitors then it isn’t going to care about badgers. Until the government starts to take an interest in the wildlife of this country, then what hope is there? The fact needs to be established that there is a definite link between badgers and bovine TB which as far as I can see has not been adequately proven. Until that has been done, then the argument holds no weight. Stop destroying our wild creatures and start protecting our natural world for future generations. It is no good working so hard on greener power and a smaller carbon footprint to save the environment on one hand if on the other you are not going to save the creatures that inhabit it. 

Killing is no answer to any problem.

I believe that farmers should continue to be compensated until a cow vaccine can be activated. It seems to be common sense to find a vaccine for the cows rather than the badgers! Shooting badgers is not the answer- I believe that nature should take her course, meaning we have the expertise as human beings to find a vaccine for cattle that will solve the problem.

38 Degrees should definitely get involved!I am a land manager/farmer in Devon & I am against the badger cull based on the science and the advice of experts. My opinion is also based on my experience and understanding of natural ecosystems and farming.It’s not a campaign based on the personification of badgers, nor is it safe to assume that you can trust farmers to sustainably manage the land in their ownership. 

Shades of the Great Cull during the 2000 Foot & Mouth outbreak…yet another knee jerk reaction. WRONG!

Someone should contact the Ramblers Association. If we tackle this disgusting decision from many angles we’re more likely to succeed. Certainly, I don’t want to be faced with gun-toting farmers when I’m out walking. Apparently, farmers and landowners will be left to organise  their own shooting – so basically that’ll be any idiot who fancies killing a bit of wildlife. Hardly, controlled and very dangerous.

i suspect there will be a rash of setts being dug up , with whole families being either shot or set upon by dogs .some farmers will need little excuse to start shedding badger blood

also , why are cattle not vaccinated , they used to in argentina , so there are vaccines available 

Absolutely ‘Appalled’ by Government decision To ‘Cull Badgers’ !    This matter requires a Scientific Decision to Help the FARMER & Our WILDLIFE – NOT A CULL ! ! !

Evidence from these earlier trials showed that they could potentially reduce new cattle infections by up to 16%, though the government’s own scientists warn that if a cull is carried out badly it could make things worse - 16% is nothing!  If they agreed at least 80% then maybe it is worth thinking about.  In this day and age senseless decisions can’t be allowed to happened.  Come on 38 degrees – get on the band wagon with this one too and lets stop it like our influence with BBkyB take over.  We can do it!

OK – so let’s kill all the badgers, all the foxes, all the deer, all the rabbits, all the rodents, most insects, all spiders, all the seagulls, all the pigeons, etc. (we’re already exterminated the wolves, the wild boars and many more). Of course we’re also already jailing, torturing and killing at a young age quadrillions of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poneys, chicken, ducks, fish, etc. Some “lucky” ones are kept in cages within alien environment in our zoos. We’re now blissfully radient with joy and appreciation of life on earth, right?

38 Degrees, this is a crucial campaign to change the mindset seeing humans as separate from and superior to all other species on earth. Please raise it to top priority!

There is enough serious science that is questioning the wisdom of such a cull.  If it was left to the farmers, they would kill anything that is of the slightest risk – they should look to their own management practices first!  And they call themselves ‘guardians of the countryside”!

Come on 38 degrees, there is clearly enough support to back a protest against the cull.

Yup, 38 Degrees, very definitley worth standing up against this, …wondering why this proposed cull keeps coming up every year…wondering if it’s more to do with building on protected land?

I am aghast at this decision, conveniently buried below the press/police/Parliament scandal. Even if the ‘cull’ would reduce TB, I would be against it on compassionate grounds. That it will be ineffective incenses me. How typical of human cruelty. We raise, abuse, sell, murder and eat poor, dumb animals. When nature dares to get in the way of our relentless pursuit of profit, nature must be stopped. I despair.

An appalling unscientific decision – scapegoating of the worst kind. I hope the UK public say no to this. 

The enormous public reaction to yesterday’s announcement proves that it is the minority who feel this cull is a good idea.  The scientific evidence suggests it will be ineffective.  We really need to mobilise and speak in one voice to stop this happening

We need to look at ourselves and our own consumption of dairy products, we don’t acutally need to eat/drink dairy at all!  We also need to look at a more sustainable farming practice beginning with educating ourselves in trying to reduce our dairy intake, for the sake of animals and for our own health - basically we need to change our mindset and the way we live!  Drink soya or rice milk, change to non dairy marg and cheese, there is little taste difference in the majority of these products  Try it, you may like it!  and you will bring down your cholesterol at the same time….

A petition is need to show public opinion. Gun, hunting, culling like this all need to stop.

I am apalled by this decision – absolutely outraged. Based on flawed methodology this will achieve nothing other than the decimation of one of our much loved native mammals. When are we going to develop a sense of pride in the nature around us and learn to live in harmony with it? If farmers want to rear cattle then it is there responsibility to vaccinate or find some other method of controlling TB within their own live stock. Their profit margins do not justify a cull. Once again this government fails the majority for the interests of the minority.

This is about the government giving in to
those with the money. It’s about blood sport by the back door. It’s about give
gun loving licensed monsters live moving targets to shoot at. It has little to
do with farming, the countryside. TB or public opinion!

This all boils down to money – figures that were quoted in the Daily Mail are as follows: To vaccinate badgers costs £2250 per year per square km; To trap and shoot badgers costs £2500 per year per square km BUT to shoot FREE RUNNING (yes, FREE RUNNING) badgers will only cost £200 per year per square km…….. You do the maths. This will have a seriously damaging and lasting effect on the fine balance of hunter/prey. These “protected” animals exist for a reason – they eat insects, grubs, small mammals etc – all classed as pests to various sectors of the farming industry. When they are gone, it will be too late – the problem will simply be passed on to different area of farming. The effects of this cull will be irresversible. Man will NEVER learn - he is the most selfish of all living beings.   

Vaccinate surely!… dont mass kill one of this countries remaining predators…how ridiculous….I want to petition against this.

Some farmers insist on using age old mysticisms as opposed to actual science and I believe that a vaccine would prevent some meat from being sold to the EU which is why farmers are rejecting the vaccine for their cattle. The science speaks louder and this cull is just a smokescreen for letting some people in rural areas use their own inhumane methods of ‘pest control’-where next? Well it will be to repeal the hunting act which Cameron and his hunting cronies are keen to repeal. In ignoring the science and continuing this vendetta against our wildlife the government are proving just how cowardly and undemocratic they are. I know of many farmers who oppose this cull out of fear that it will make the problem worse.

It’s easier to scapegoat than to vaccinate. Is it more effective as well?

85% of the problem is not badger related, so it just seems cruel and ridiculous. 

If the cull is carried out badly it could make things worse, it will in any event cause horrific suffering, and will still leave 85% of the problem in place. So why is it going ahead again? Yet another badly thought through solution from this Government with no thought to the consequences. Badger habitat is protected by law – and we spend thousands of pounds surveying their movements to make sure development projects don’t affect populations and movements, and on the other hand we are about to start randomly shooting them just ‘to see’ if it makes a difference. It needs to be stopped.

Will this become a 38 degrees campaign and where can we vote for it to become one please?  
Even Government’s own expert advisor advised against it. Please see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/11/badger-culling-ineffective-krebs Guardian 11 July.

where can we vote to make this a 38 degree campaign. We need to act very very quickly

Appalled by this decision. The culling of badgers will NOT solve the problem. The only thing that it will do is make the problem worse AND cause alot of suffering. PLEASE protest against the cull now!!

I cannot believe that the coalition can do this when the Welsh Assembly has stopped the cull. Why does the government think that killing animals is a good thing no matter what and where?
Viva! is doing a petition, so sign up to it.

The answer is obvious. Give up dairy, and meat at the same time. Fewer cows needed.

I did start a campaign idea for this yesterday – “Save Our Badgers” – which is picking up speed nicely, so here’s the link:

http://38degrees.uservoice.com/forums/78585-campaign-suggestions/suggestions/2052107-save-our-badgers

Please vote!!!

We need a strong campaign to stop this barbaric cull now. The farmers should be made to vaccinate their cattle. They also need to stop illegal movement of cattle and bad animal husbandry. The badgers are being made scapegoats for indemic bad farming practises.

This campaign should be raised to top priority. We have become so arrogant,stupid and selfish as a species that we think we are justified in destroying everything that gets in the way of our endless pursuit of profit, it will be the end of us ultimately. NO NATURE, NO FUTURE.

Er, we do have a shotgun / firearms licensing system in this country, one that is VERY strict compared to others, you know. Stop talking out of your rear-end as if the countryside is full of inbred yokels who couldn’t safely use a gun if they tried. I agree that the decision is VERY unsound over the badger cull, but the thing about guns is when used, they make a noise – you know they’re there. When a farmer is carrying them around, he’s licensed to do so, why fear farmers? If they’re ever mentally-unstable it’s due to the stress caused by supermarkets fixing prices, so have some guts and buy your products elsewhere, put your money where your mouth is, and forget convenience – it’s over-rated.

Excellent response, covering all points of controversy. I wish I still lived in Devon so I could contribute!

That, and simply make your cattle HEALTHY. Does that mean spending significantly more money on good quality feed, treatments, etc? Well do it, charge more and f**k the supermarkets, sell direct or via an ETHICAL middleman – not three of them conniving to make money at the farmers’ and consumers’ expense. Profit has no place in something as important as the environment and food. Nor healthcare of people OR animals. But profit is now our God if you look around – we did well in ditching Christianity, didn’t we (not until we find a better replacement, we didn’t) ?!

If this action goes ahead and badgers are culled, to benefit man it would seem, what is to stop the Govt from repealing the act which stopped(??) fox hunting. The abhorence in our population about causing suffering to animals will be diminished by the practice and animals (badgers and foxes) will die in considerable numbers. Tuberculosis in man is a disease much associated with poor living conditions and the widespread killing of badgers will result in poor living conditions for the survivors.If tuberculosis is rife in cattle, treat the cattle, immunise them, not wild animals who may or may not pass on the infection.This campaign is abhorrent and will have very bad consequences. I would urge that it is strongly opposed by 38 degrees

Damn right. Quality not quantity, why the hell do we have to follow the failed American system, unless we are secretly slaves to the same masters? ‘Hell’ might be the operative word, in fact… Do you want life on earth to turn into hell or be as pleasant and healthy as we can make it?

The big issue is ignoring science in favour of politics. Farmers have typically voted for those who enable their exploitation, so that’s pretty stupid, let’s let objective SCIENCE cut through the politics.

That’s one of the biggest issues in the whole world, and will be for a long time – and this badger cull is but a symptom of it. Get a clue how to identify the important things in life, as right now, you miss the whole picture something severely, mate!

There’s enough money in the system to pay for better welfare of animals
and better food for all, and higher wages for farmers: but right now
some much lazier fat-cats are creaming it off instead (no pun intended)!

If farmers didn’t get in bed (or think they are forced to, the unimaginative fools) with people that are only there to exploit them (middlemen, supermarket cartels), they’d have far less problems.

In France they have some balls and stand up for themselves, protesting and such, but what about here? They’re too repressed and submissive to big business! Like Americans, and look how disgusting American mass-produced ‘agricultural products’ are. Voting Conservative when it’s the Conservatives who particularly jump into bed with (American and other) big business in order to rape the countryside. All this whilst pretending to support it just because they like a jolly with their clays or hounds on the weekend in their big houses, in their big 4x4s that barely ever see any mud.

Why support such deception and selfishness? Lack of education, WILL and political nous! That’s the farmer’s REAL long-term problem, and if they’re not going to hold up their end of solving their OWN problems, I for one am going to be sympathetic to their exceptionally hard working lives, but not waste my time supporting their ignorance. All exceptions to that rule respected, and if I’m talking from ignorance, tell me, how come the system isn’t better then? It CAN be that simple if you force it to be. And why shouldn’t you have the power rather than someone else working less hard? THAT is justice.

Every time you city-dwellers buy a pint of supermarket milk, you help perpetrate an injustice. Fact.

Of course, the British Vetinary Association gets its members paid by the status quo, rather than preventing of disease by making cattle healthy in the first place. Like living healthily keeps you away from the doctor. Profit, it’s all SELFISH profit in the back of ‘professionals” minds. But profit is now our God if you look around – we did well in ditching
Christianity, didn’t we (not until we find a better replacement, we
didn’t) ?!

Someone else posted this Farmers Guardian article on another site. Seems Labour were going to trial new vaccine for badgers last summer but the Tory Government scrapped it to save money.

Badger TB vaccine granted official approval29 March 2010 | By Alistair Driver

THE first tuberculosis vaccine for use in badgers in the UK has been approved by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD).  Authorisation for the BadgerBCG vaccine was officially granted last week, paving the way for vaccination to begin in six bovine TB (bTB) hotspot areas of England this summer.The vaccine used in badgers will be identical to the BCG vaccine widely used in humans and will be manufactured by the Statens Serum Institute, in Copengagen, which produces vast quantities of the human vaccine.The authorisation has been issued following intensive research and testing, which has shown the vaccine to be safe and offer badgers protection against the bacterium responsible for bTB. The research was conducted by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) and the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) and funded by Defra at a cost of £11m over 10 years.The Defra-funded Badger Vaccine Deployment Project will now take place in areas of 300 sq.km in Staffordshire, the Herefordshire and Worcestershire border, two locations in Gloucestershire and two in Devon from this summer. Within each location, vaccination will take place on up to 100sq.km of target farms. Participants are currently being signed up.Badgers will be trapped and vaccinated by trained and licensed contractors over a five-year period.The intention is to build up a pool of licensed contractors who can carry out vaccination more widely outside the project areas. Farmers outside of the project areas would have to source and pay for licensed contractors themselves, however.Announcing the vaccine authorisation in the Commons, Defra Secretary Hilary Benn said: “The injectable badger vaccine has been approved by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. That means that the six demonstration projects on which I have previously reported to the House can now go ahead in the summer.”

have you put this link on the facebook page? I have just shared it from my facebook page to try and get more votes. Jo

have now

Leave the badgers alone. They have the right to live, just like any other animal. If we stop eating meat, no disease will be spread and the cruelty business that meat is will no longer make cattle and badges victims of the appetite of millions.

This is awful, it’s going to end up a bloodbath where people who enjoy killing animals for fun can claim to be “culling badgers” it just makes me sick the way this Tory led government is determined to kill our wildlife one way or another. We should fight this.

Ignorance must be bliss……………if not pathetic and stupid; there will be 10 licences granted per year. Fool. 

This is about cost and a Tory Manifesto pledge to the NFU. Vaccination is expensive but  from what I have read effective, 74% reduction in incidents in TB in badgers during trials. Culling, expected results is a 16% reduction in TB in cattle over time.  What we really need to be looking at is our farming methods, we need to stop  the cull.

The thought of badger culling disgusts me, DEFRA have no proof that badgers pass TB to cattle.  They are too powerful for their boots.  The Government needs to think again. The badgers have just as much right to be here as us, actually they have more right as they don’t go around  destroying our habitat the way we do others.  Its us that drives them from the forests with destruction of woodland, so where are they supposed to go, its the same with foxes, they are both rural animals but are pushed further into farms and built up areas because of our selfishness.

You cannot know what the consensus of scientific opinion is by asking a scientist – using proof by appeal to authority (i.e. “a scientist says…”) may be considered valid in humanities and arts, but that is not how science itself works.  In any given field it will be possible to find scientists who hold differing opinions, and there’s no rule that just because they’re scientists they have to agree. The Govt policy can be science-lead, AND cost-lead (i.e. a convolution of the two), AND some scientists can disagree with it. These are not contradictory.  You cannot convince me that badger culling is or is not a bad idea, scientifically speaking, by citing Radio 4; or for that matter, by asking the public. Please, up your game 38°.

What worries me, should the Cull go ahead, some well meaning individuals will try to entrap and relocate Badgers infected with TB into other TB Free areas of the country thus compounding the problem. Jimbo

Whoa, there. Flying in the face of (a little) evidence by not gassing / innoculating badgers – no, we’ve banned chasing foxes with a pack of dogs, so let’s shoot some badgers for SPORT (?) instead ??

Its wrong. Period.

The Government has to think again a badger cull is totally abhorent and of course it will not stop the spread of TB. Vaccinate the cattle – leave our wonderful wild life alone. It is all so distressing to think of such a massive attack on our Badgers -I just wish more people would STOP EATING MEAT..but that’s another story.
Valerie 

We can’t “leave it to the farmers” as Robert G Long suggests. Farmers are locked in to the profit motive. They would cheerfully shoot all the birds from the sky and pour chemicals into rivers in pursuit of their “reasonable returns”. They will claim that they are only trying to feed the nation, but have you ever asked yourself why you cannot feed yourself ? They own all the useful land. Today they are clamouring for the right to keep thousands of cattle in sheds, never to go out in the fields. If animals are kept in such numbers they get sick and cattle have always had TB. They carry TB to such an extent that they have given it to the badgers. Reduce the numbers of cattle in the UK and release land for other uses eg. orchards so that I can eat apples that have not travelled from South Africa or New Zealand.

Just how does a small animal that is afraid of large animals stay next to a cow for long enough to sneeze over it to give it TB ????
Its ridiculous!!
The reason cows (or humans) get TB is because their immune systems are down because of poor husbandry, being fed unnatural foods, being in fields irradiated by microwave radiation from mobile phone masts, being fed GM animal feed, being pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, etc, etc

Leave the badgers alone!!!

Because rural animal-slaughterers really care about legality and licences, don’t they?

You must live in a permanently blissful state.

Sorry Jo – just to say *all* dairy cows will eventually be slaughtered, not just ‘many’.

I am going to raise an army of badgers and storm parliament.Go to 38 degrees and The League Against Cruel Sports to stop the cull of these beautiful creatures before it is too late.

The
science advocated by the pro cull side is dubious, and wilfully
ignores credible, well researched science that shows that culling
badgers does not eradicate TB – it simply moves the problem along
in the short term, and makes it worse in the long term. Unfortunately
some farmers don’t seem to understand this and/or don’t want to take
full responsibility. They often come from a ‘if there’s a problem,
kill it’ mindset. Of course, this is a generalisation and does not
reflect all farmers – I know there are farmers who are very worried about the negative effects of a cull and they should be worried. But this is the stance various farming bodies have taken. You cannot
cherry pick science based data, to do so is confirmation bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias).
This is what the pro cull side have done. You have to consider all
the data to make an informed argument, and the data clearly shows
badger culling does not work and most likely makes the problem worse in the long run. 

As
the science shows, culling does not work – if it did, why do we
still have a TB problem after all these years of culling? (both
official culling and the huge amounts of illegal culling which has
made the problem worse and why Bovine TB is such a problem now). The
long term sustainable solution is vaccination. But more importantly
farmers need to take responsibility! TB is spreading across the
countryside BECAUSE of the way a considerable amount of farmers keep
their animals. How many times have you driven across a country lane
only to see it covered in cow muck? One of the ways TB is spread is
through the excretions of cows. I can walk out of my door now, and
see roads covered in cow muck. I can see hedgerows, telegraph poles,
woodland/trees that got sprayed by these industrial machines by
mistake. Badgers (and other mammals) walk on the infected ground and
catch it. Farmers are infecting the country with TB on a mass scale –
NOT badgers.

I
live in a rural area – very closed the proposed and controversial
Welsh badger cull trials. Again, it’s farmers who are responsible for
spreading TB. THIS is the area that needs to be addressed. For
example, in winter, they cram hundreds of cows in large sheds, and
save all the cow excrement, only to spread over their land, on an
industrial scale later in the year. This is just one area that should
be looked at as a potential contamination method. Much stricter
hygiene controls on the way farmers keep their animals are needed.
Animal movement needs to be looked at also. The illegal culling that
has been happening for years needs to be looked at as a cause of
bovine TB – this is what is spreading it. There are many, many
other areas that should be looked at, and most of these lay at the
feet of the farmers.

As I
mentioned earlier, badgers aren’t the only mammals that can catch TB
and infect other animals. So what happens next, do we kill all
British mammals to stop the spread of TB? Cats and dogs also can
catch TB – do we cull those to stop it spreading? Of course we
don’t! My point is, badger culling is myopic and does not address the
full problem, and only ends up pleasing those farmers who do not
understand the legitimate science and long term implications of
badger culling (as well as those benefiting from the lucrative
government contracts to carry out the culls). Clearly we need a more
sustainable way to deal with bovine TB – vaccination!

So
yes, lets allow a vote on this.

The science advocated by the pro cull side is dubious, and wilfully
ignores credible, well researched science that shows that culling
badgers does not eradicate TB – it simply moves the problem along
in the short term, and makes it worse in the long term. Unfortunately
some farmers don’t seem to understand this and/or don’t want to take
full responsibility. They often come from a ‘if there’s a problem,
kill it’ mindset. Of course, this is a generalisation and does not
reflect all farmers – I know there are farmers who are very worried about the negative effects of a cull and they should be worried. But this is the stance various farming bodies have taken. You cannot
cherry pick science based data, to do so is confirmation bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias).
This is what the pro cull side have done. You have to consider all
the data to make an informed argument, and the data clearly shows
badger culling does not work and most likely makes the problem worse in the long run.  

As the science shows, culling does not work – if it did, why do we
still have a TB problem after all these years of culling? (both
official culling and the huge amounts of illegal culling which has
made the problem worse and why Bovine TB is such a problem now). The
long term sustainable solution is vaccination. But more importantly
farmers need to take responsibility! TB is spreading across the
countryside BECAUSE of the way a considerable amount of farmers keep
their animals. How many times have you driven across a country lane
only to see it covered in cow muck? One of the ways TB is spread is
through the excretions of cows. I can walk out of my door now, and
see roads covered in cow muck. I can see hedgerows, telegraph poles,
woodland/trees that got sprayed by these industrial machines by
mistake. Badgers (and other mammals) walk on the infected ground and
catch it. Farmers are infecting the country with TB on a mass scale –
NOT badgers.

I live in a rural area – very closed the proposed and controversial
Welsh badger cull trials. Again, it’s farmers who are responsible for
spreading TB. THIS is the area that needs to be addressed. For
example, in winter, they cram hundreds of cows in large sheds, and
save all the cow excrement, only to spread over their land, on an
industrial scale later in the year. This is just one area that should
be looked at as a potential contamination method. Much stricter
hygiene controls on the way farmers keep their animals are needed.
Animal movement needs to be looked at also. The illegal culling that
has been happening for years needs to be looked at as a cause of
bovine TB – this is what is spreading it. There are many, many
other areas that should be looked at, and most of these lay at the
feet of the farmers.

As I mentioned earlier, badgers aren’t the only mammals that can catch TB
and infect other animals. So what happens next, do we kill all
British mammals to stop the spread of TB? Cats and dogs also can
catch TB – do we cull those to stop it spreading? Of course we
don’t! My point is, badger culling is myopic and does not address the
full problem, and only ends up pleasing those farmers who do not
understand the legitimate science and long term implications of
badger culling (as well as those benefiting from the lucrative
government contracts to carry out the culls). Clearly we need a more
sustainable way to deal with bovine TB – vaccination!

So yes, lets allow a vote on this.

38 Degrees should steer well clear of this issue.

It’s founded on a disagreement between scientists over the best way to control a disease of cattle. Skim reading the literature suggests to me that what’s being proposed is relatively small scale and supported by evidence. I have no desire to see cute furry animals shot, but I am prepared to accept that it may be necessary in this instance.

Perhaps more evidence will come to light as a result of the cull so the scientific arguments on both sides become clearer in the future. At present we would be making a stand based largely on an emotional response, and that would be unhelpful both to the debate and to the reputation of 38 Degrees.

There must be other ways to deal with this. As kids we were all vaccinated against TB – is it not possible to vaccinate cattle, along with all the other vaccinations they must have?

While I hate the idea of a badger cull in principle, and had thought I was set against it, I now know that the British Veterinary Association is in favour which makes me think more carefully about the issue. Vets care about all animals (and frequently patch up wild ones for free) and they are the ones that have to tell farmers their cattle need culling because of TB.
http://www.bva.co.uk/2396.aspxI don’t believe 38 Degrees should get involved with this issue because I think it’s too easy for people who don’t know enough about it (including myself) to be swayed by the ‘cuddly animal’ argument. I live in the countryside and these things are rarely black and white.

There are lots of females commenting here- almost all opposed to the badger cull.
Girls (esp)…Consider a situation, school for example, where you are forced (too strong a word but..) to send your children.  Consider that, while there, your children are picking up and eating poisoned sweeties. These sweeties will not only cause your child to endure a slow agonising death but will probably result in yourself being personally criticised and ostracised and will almost certainly cause severe financial distress to your family.  Consider that you, the school and Government are fairly sure who or where these poisoned sweeties are coming from.
Would not insist on something being done about that.
Now, replace ‘children’ with ‘farm livestock’ and school with ‘open fields’.

Also consider that badger is not native to this country – William the Conqueror brought it as food. People food that is, not something cuddly and pretty and nice to look at.
Is it nice, lovely, natural etc to let badgers have TB.  Does it not affect them the same as others animals that catch it?
Also consider that 25% of UK farmers are living below what is defined as ‘The Poverty Line’  That’s real poverty, not some imagined fuel or other poverty because you’ve spent all your money on fags or booze. Poverty poverty.
Consider also that the average UK farmer in almost 61 years old.  Before long, badger might be the only UK sourced meat left available.

Utter nonsense.

 Not ridiculous really Its spread from Urine  and badgers bein unafraid of cattle pee allover the pasture
TB  is a disease of overcrowding  Calcutta being a prime example in the human world. Badgers to some extent are a victim of their own success One infect animal in a set can infect the rest and while I do not believe that a mass cull is the solution I do think that it would be wise to reduce the population of males You may well be right that poor husbandry plays a significant role but the rest of your reasoning is pretty specious and easily refuted. If people do not want to see mass extermination the they should use reasons scientific arguement to over come those who maintain that culling on a grand scale is the only solution. TB is treatable and I would prefer to see see all animals treated rather than killed after all isn’t that how TB was eradicated in the western world until migration from the sub continent became the norm But please don’t argue from an emotional premis many animals are suffering both badger and bovine. In New Zealand there is an established link between cats and TB and I wonder how owners would feel if thier pet cat displayed symptoms.
John Harrison Shropshire

There is no doubt in my mind that the wanton slaughter of one of our most-loved species is WRONG. The evidence does not back up this course of action in any case but even if it did I would still maintain that this was the wrong course of action.

I’m afraid that I don’t trust in the idea that  farmers are “custodians of the countryside” and whilst this may, in some cases be true I feel that the general attitude is that “badgers are expendable so why don’t we try killing them all ? If it doesn’t work what’s lost?” I don’t wish to vilify all farmers but I don’t think that we should stand by and let the unthinking and vocal majority exterminate a species.

Perhaps it is time to reassess farming practices and to help farmers to operate in a more responsible way. It wasn’t long ago that the proposal of a factory farm in Linconshire where cattle would never have even seen a field was defeated. What does that say to us about decency and caring? The way we treat creatures~ both wild animals and livestock is an indication of whether or not we are a healthy society. Stand up for the badger and you are standing up for something important amd fundamental.

Why can`t they just vacinate the cows or is it like everything else driven by money.   Here we are telling poor people in third world contries not to kill animals,some of which are dangerous, whilst we kill them as a convenience.   If it is good enough to preserve animals in these third world countries then it is we should be doing it here and practising what we preach.  We can more than afford it,morethan some others.   

Badgers are always black and white.

The quick answer is no. A vaccine is many years away and, under EU law it would be illegal for vaccinated cattle to enter the food chain. Also, badgers and wild deer suffer from TB and suffer a slow and agonising death. Few people complain about deer numbers being controlled by culling, which has gone on for centuries and removes the old and ill deer from the population, so why is there such a fuss about the culling of TB carrying badgers ?

Why can’t they just inoculate the cattle against TB. Then there would be no problem.

Firstly I haven’t heard a more ridiculous response than that. You say ‘consider that you, the school and the government are fairly sure..’. Well if they are ‘fairly sure’ then it must be fact and we MUST ACT NOW! KILL ALL BADGERS BECAUSE WE ARE ‘FAIRLY SURE’.

Im sure thats what Tony Blair and the Government said about Weapons of Mass Destruction.. we are still yet to see evidence of that! As we are still yet to see undeniable factual evidence that Badgers are the main source of TB to cattle.

Does anyone care that the average farmer is 61? no. 
Does anyone care that William the Conquerer brought Badgers over for food. no.
Does anyone care that 25% of UK Farmers are living below the poverty line. no.
We don’t care because MILLIONS of people in the UK are living below the poverty line and obnoxious, fox hunting and inbred farmers and their families are the least of the UK’s worries.

Come back when you’re a bit more informed and have a genuinely good opinion to put across, and please take your William the Conquerer fact and stick it where the sun don’t shine because that was really lame.

In my opinion this increase started again with mass immigration many of who have am-massed in the south; or’ was could it have been  spread in a similar way as  mexamatosis way back in the 1950′s by farmers themselves??

Caroline Spelman is a liar. Tories have no evisence that slaughtering
thousands of badgers inhumanely will stop bovine TB. They have passed
this law now when all of the mess to do with phone hacking is in full
swing because badger culling won’t be the main topic. They have found
away of keeping farmers happy and making it very cheap for themselves.
The Tories cannot be trusted.
 

Hunting animals with shotguns is a grim business. Quite apart from the issue of ‘badger peturbation’ potentially spreading the disease, if hunted in this way, inevitably many will be injured and escape to die underground, and orphaned young animals will starve to death – not a humane solution, if it’s a solution at all, which the science seems to call into question.

On the other hand, the farming community is under huge pressure, small meat and dairy farmers especially, and they need all the help they can get just to survive, and to continue to supply locally, sustainably produced meat and dairy products.

A remedy for the acute problem of bovine TB is urgently needed – certainly we should all press for one to be found. I can’t pretend to know the answers, but a reactive cull of badgers, based on flawed or inadequately reviewed science, almost certainly isn’t the solution.

Why does the solution to modern farmings ills always involve the destruction of other species?

Is it worth reminding everybody that once upon a time it was believed that Red Kites, Golden Eagles and white tailed fishing eagles (amongst other animals like wolves and bears) were considered to be dangers to farm animals, as such all were hunted to the very brink of extinction in this country until it was proved that these birds simply weren’t threats. Many of us have since spent a lot of time trying to bring these animals back and don’t particularly want to do the same when its realised just how little spread is caused by Badgers.

The main cause of the issue is too many cattle but because you can make money out of them nobody is suggesting a cull are they? Why must the remaining natural inhabitants of this island suffer because of every unatural act of the human being?

In my previous comments I mentioned mexamatosis (anyone not familiar with this terrible plight) I was a ghastly terrible decease allegedly spread by Farmers (during 1950′s,) to destroy the Rabbit Population  this cause the Head of Rabbits to swell grotescally and make the Rabbits Eyes bulge, get all matery, made them blind, in many case pop out, leaving the rabbits to live a lingering revolting death

Just check out the article by the Mammal Society
http://www.mammal.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=386:badger-cull-response&catid=53:news

Also check out the finding by the Badger Society, as this will prove that this government is lying about the alleged increase in Bovine TB and the cause being Badgers. lies Lies and more lies.

By the way, this cull will not be strictly supervised, but anyone can have go, by whatever method. 
I will pray for every badger that they may not suffer too much, while the crazies can have a free for all, thanks to this Government

It is not the Badger Science has proven that.It is another LIE by this government.

It has been proven by science, and been echoed by many farmers i have spoken too in Kent, and Somerset, who state that the likely problems are with some of the farmers themselves. Transportation of the cattle form farm to farm as well as abattoirs and NOT badgers

It does seem over the top to be protecting badgers for years, at huge costs, then turning round and deciding to cull them.  Wouldn’t it be simpler and maybe less radical to just lift the protection on badgers (while still regulating the number of badger deaths)?
That way we would have less badgers in the wild, and consequently if the evidence is correct (which according to many of you is not), less links between badgers and bovine TB, but without having a cull.

If we interfere (yet again) with the status quo of wildlife – i.e eradicating badgers, we will only cause more problems down-the-line: whatever the badger feeds on will become a pest; what then, do we keep going until we’ve killed off all our native species???  We’ve imposed on the badger’s natural habitat with extensive farming, not the other way round. What is wrong with spending money on inoculating the cattle against TB, or even the badgers, or both? Surely it’s no more expensive than a. the administration and application of shooting badgers and disposing of them or b. bailing farmers out with subsidies after they’ve put down their entire herd, because one cow has TB. It’s appalling that farmers have to lose their stock in this way and detrimental to the economy.
As far as I’m aware TB in humans is different from TB in cattle, cattle contract M.bovis and we get a different strain, almost 100% of TB in humans is caused by M.tuberculosis, so what is the risk to us???? Perhaps someone will clarify this for me??

The science is fairly clear that the cull makes sense. Other campaigning issues made more sense than this one. There are plenty of advocates against the cull so I don’t see why 38 degrees should get involved

I went to a course on Badgers at Oxford University over 20 years ago when the very same issues regardin Badgers and Bovine TB were being discussed. Is that not long enough for someone to have come up with a viable vaccine for cattle (not Badgers!) against this disease?  

‘Girls’ , eh?  Wonder how I knew it was going to be a patronising, ignorant post?  Oh yes, having badgers in the fields is just like having poisoned sweeties in a school where kids are forced to go, sooooo glad you explained the metaphor or with my feeble girly brain I’d never have understood. Actually I still don’t because it’s a rubbish metaphor – nobody is forced to eat beef or dairy.

As for the supposed argument that badgers aren’t native to this country, I can’t imagine what your point is, but if we’re only going to eat food ‘native to this country’ (since when?  The stone age?) I think farmers are going to have more problems than they do now with badgers.  No GM crops.  No maize.  No potatoes even…

FYI  fuel poverty is the proportion of your INCOME that you pay for fuel.  It’s got nothing to do with your consumption habits.  As for your pictures of poor farmers below the poverty line, my heart bleeds, as long as I don’t look out of my window here in Somerset and notice their big houses, 4x4s, woodland to provide free timber for heating and kids in private schools.  But if they do find the poverty too crushing, they can always sell the farm, which is more than you can do if you work in a shop for minimum wage and rent a bedsit.  That, and not sitting on a heap of land,  is ‘poverty poverty’ as you put it.  But then the landed have always been quick to accuse the poor of wicked self-indulgence. 

Oh dear.  This is what happens when you get too irritated with idiots, you forget the reason you came onto the forum to start with….I’m against the cull. 

I’m a big fan of 38Degrees, but I think it’s a really bad idea, and possibly even a little irresponsible for 38degrees to ask people who are not directly involved in this issue to comment or vote against it. A lot of people will just say something like “Aww the poor cute badgers, why are they picking on them” and then vote against it without ever taking the time to see both sides of this discussion. There are clearly far too many ‘emotional factors’ involved here for it to be a useful public discussion.

FYI: I am not in favour of the badger cull – i’m just aware of obvious general bias a conversation like this will tend towards!

The problem is not the badgers, it’s the intensive farming, which is itself led by the major supermarkets not paying the farmers a fair price for their goods, leading to ever more desperate methods to boost the products from the farmers.
Badgers could be caught and innoculated for a 10th the cost of the badger cull or the slaughter of infected cattle, but they won’t do that.
Why ?
Cattle, equally, could be inocculated, (?sp?) but if they do that then, like a human they then show as a positive on testing, so you don’t know whether they have the disease or just an immunity to it.

The proposed badger cull is a very limited operation and only part of the bigger picture of controlling bovine TB in cattle. Farmers face tough restrictions on movement of cattle and control of TB in their herds. So please don’t get this controlled cull out of proportion, yes badgers are cute (especially those shown on BBC wildlife programmes) but they are not a threatened species and the cull is not the only way to control bovine TB. 

[...] policy they should not be trying to control TB in cattle by culling badgers." See more here: 38 Degrees | Blog | Badgers – trial shoots to go ahead NOTES [1] Guardian article, "Badger cull: Caroline Spelman 'strongly minded' to allow [...]

Years ago, Farmers wanted to kill off Rabbits. The results, a hobble disease. Birds of pray died and pests over populate. Kill the Badgers of and you will get more Mice, Rats and other pests destroying crops and causing disease. When will Farmers learn. there should be a balance, Kill the Badgers of and risk An increase of pests and diseases. 

Snupy stated “Also consider that badger is not native to this country – William the Conqueror brought it as food. ”
Badgers were not introduced by William the Conqueror,  you may have Rabbits in mind. Badgers  are native the earliest remains  were discovered at Boxgrove., West Sussex  and have been dated to the Cromerian Stage of the Early Pleistocene about 3/4 to half a million years ago. See  Badger, T Roper,   NN Page 3. ISBN 978-0-00-732041-7.

Don’t attempt to talk down to those who feel that the plight of a living creature is in the balance.Badgers aren’t cute… but they have a right to life. I happen to think that they are as important as cattle…creatures which I also have a love for,

Consider the idea that change in farming practices might be the answer rather than the slaughter of an innocent species. I think that we should have a dialogue and persaude this government to support farmers whilst eschewing any idea of slaughtering the badger population.

What is your answer to that? 

NO IT ISN’T.

Farmers should sell their range rovers and use the money to improve their disgusting farming techniques. Put their money in to more development of good practice and stop blaming everything else. Badgers are not to blame. The farmers can deal with this with out killing yet another creature of our countryside. If this is the farmers telling me they are looking after out environment…then it stinks

Oh go away.

The (Labour) government carried out a ten year study involving killing badgers and measuring the results on the TB status of cattle herds.  The scientists concluded that badger culling should not be part of a TB control policy.  Since then the government has enforced stricter controls on testing of cattle and the TB statistics have reduced year on year, with no killing of badgers.

A study by Oxford University showed that 85% of bTB outbreaks are caused by cattle movements.  The cause of the other 15% was not identified, and could be caused by a whole range of things, including cattle to cattle transfer and bTB laying dormant in cattle for two years.  So badgers may cause a very small proportion of the problem, while cattle (and farmers) are proved to be responsible for at least 85% of the problem.

Over the last few months several cases have come to court where farmers have been found guilty of breaking the bTB laws.  Cattle which tested positive have been kept in the herd while less productive animals have been sent to slaughter wearing the ear tags of the infected animals.  And infectious animals have been taken to agricultural shows to mix with other farmers prize animals.  And this government thinks it can trust Farmers judgement on the bTB issue.

Eight times as many cattle are slaughtered due to mastitis and footrot as are slaughtered due to bTB.  Farmers don’t have time to be going out shooting wildlife; they should be improving the husbandry of their cattle.

Even in areas where bTB is rife in cattle only about 7% of badgers actually have the disease.  Badgers seem to be able to tolerate the disease and live with it, and do not seem to infect each other.  The science seems to indicate that badger to badger infection rates are very low.  The only cases where badger to cattle infection was proved where about 2% of the total infections.

So all the science says that culling is wrong.  But the farmers traditional search for a scapegoat is driving this government’s decision making.

The science is totally clear that culling should play NO part in a bTB control strategy.  That was the conclusion of the Krebbs report, and the scientists who worked on that study are all oppossed to the cull.

I imagine that you can always find spurious reasons for and against an argument… however i feel that there is a moral issue here… if somebody told you that killing all the folks in your street was the right thing to do because they might spread an illness, would you go and do it?

forget the politics…WE SHOULD FIGHT THIS.

When you say “lift the protection on badgers” are you suggesting that we should allow badger baiting again?

The Krebbs report proved that small scale reactive culling was the worst scenario in terms of perturbation and the breakdown of adjacent cattle herds.  Leaving badgers alone, and focussing on cattle testing is the best way to solve the bTB problem.  That’s how we nearly eradicated bTB in the 20th century, and that’s how Scotland has eradicated it in the 21st century.

CAN  I SUGGEST THIS? … ALL THOSE AGAINST THE BADGER CULL CHANGE THEIR FB PROFILES TO A PICTURE THAT REPRESENTS SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE AGAINST THE KILLING OF OUR BELOVED WILDLIFE.

I thank you.

There is evidence that a Gloucestershire farmers wife fed unpateurised milk to her local badgers.  One of the badgers was struck by a car, and the vet who inspected the dead badger identified the bTB in the badger.  From this one incident the farmers concluded that all badgers have bTB and give to cattle.  But it’s a lie; it doesn’t work like that.

so you are saying if mobile phones are irradicated there will be no problem – are you prepared to do that? I doubt very much

 I understand that argument but isn’t it true that if people feel strongly about an issue there might be a reason to make their views heard? I accept that there are those who feel that a badger cull is some sort of answer and if they can conclusively prove that that is the best thing to do for all creatures concerned then I (we) should listen to them. The point is that nobody has made a conclusive argument in favour of the badger killing.

It is also true that my personal “gut reaction” is that killing is wrong but that doesn’t mean that i am an extremist…just that I can see that things are going too far… maybe we should get ourselves “back to the garden” , in the words of that old Joni Mitchell song.

The science is NOT fairly clear that the “cull” or killing makes sense. If you think that this issue is insignificant I urge you to think again. I think that there is every reason why 38 degrees should get involved.

 More than the average driver on London’s roads, mate. I’ve killed animals before but I’m happy with my moral compass. Suffering and extermination are very different to simply killing. At least if you think without prejudice… You ought to be more blissful yourself, stephen, do you live in a city?

 If you said “farmers, under extreme pressure to make ends meet, might cut any corners they deem necessary, including the law”, then you’d have been more accurate in your description, rather than generalising all rural dwellers. Fuck prejudice, it only clouds an issue, fool.

Killing of all wild life should be banned animals are more precious than lots of humans

I am totally against this blood lust cull against badgers perhaps a cull of the brain dead politicians woulod be more in order

Brock the badger has no defense against these one eyed totally disgusting politicians rural terroist all of them

The badger cull does not seem to be supported by strong science. But the situation is not completely clear and there are far more important and less emotive and populist things for 38 degrees to get involved in. This would be a mistake.

The video clip shows cows in a restricted area crossing a lane for milking which would happen twice a day. Any car passing along this lane would inevitably pick up cow dung on their tyres and carry it for many miles. This could very easiy be one of the transmission routes for the gradual spread of bTB. Badgers are territorial animals and stay within boundaries that can be identied by  bait marking. They will only move out of their areas if they flee in terror as they see their families slaughtered.
 
If the cull goes ahead, I trust there would be a control area to compare non shooting with shooting areas. At the same time there needs to be strict cattle based measures all over the Country not must in culling areas.Dead badgers should also have to be tested for bTB to find out how many actually carried this terrible disease. Since stricter cattle based measues were introduced in South Wales, the proposed culling area there, bTB was reduced dramatically in two years without any badgers being killed.In places where there are strict importation laws, where cattle are not allowed entry without prior testing for bTB, there is no bTB. In New Zealand bTB has not been reduced by killing possums that were introduced from Australia for their pelts, but by annual testing for bTB and for also regularly testing farmed deer which also carry bTB.This information has come to me from a New Zealand farmer as well as vets.
 
In Southern Ireland where badgers have been cruelly snared and shot over many years the incidence of bTB has risen since cattle based measues were reduced, whereas in Northern ireland, by having strict cattle based measres, regular testing of cattle and by using technology to be able to follow the history of an animal and so identify any source of infection, the incidence of bTB has been reduced significantly without any badgers being culled.
 
The vaccination of badgers pilot scheme introduced by the Labour Government was scrapped by the Coalition Government when they came into power apart from one site. Badgers can still be vaccinated against bTB by being cage trapped and injected even though an oral vaccine is not yet ready.
 
bTB increased in this country when farms were restocked following the foot and mouth epidemic without prior testing for bTB.; there had been no bTB in Cumbria until then. The strain of bTB found there could be traced back to cattle bought from the South West.
 
In South Yorkshire, the only cases of bTB in cattle that I am aware of have been directly linked to blught in cattle by the farmers own admission.
 
It is a dreaded disease for farmers to have to deal with and apart from losing cattle is so restrictive over many months.I am very sympathetic to their plight, but culling badgers does not seem to be the answer.
 
Monica Ward
 
 

[...] 38 Degrees blog post and discussion - http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/07/19/badgers-trial-shoots-to-go-ahead/ and Facebook page [...]

We all recognise that Tb in cattle needs to be addressed and prevented but it needs to be a 2 pronged attack.  Research scientists should be getting major financial incentives to come up with a bovine vaccine iminently and we should be looking at injecting badgers.

If it is possible to shoot badgers in order to cull them, why can’t we ‘shoot’ them with a TB vaccine?  Surely we have the technology availalbe to deliver the vaccine in this form – similar to a tranquiliser dart.  Let’s not destroy thousands of badgers needlessly if it is possible to intervene medically.

Diane

Whilst reading this article and forming an opinion i came to the conclusion that migration would be an obvious ramification of the policy being take, thankfully this is a similar message to that which Lord Krebs contributed.
Analogously by limiting the targets that the cellular predator, tubercolosis, has it is simply making it more effective in targeting cows rather than there being subcultures within its population with diversifying genes for the toxins effective in each host or methods in which it can evade immunity.
Serious attention needs to be given to land management in the upcoming years considering biodiversity and agricultural productivity in tandem.

Hi
I can’t see how on earth cattle can get TB from badgers urine??
It is just a theory (excuse). It has not been shown to my knowledge. Please explain??
TB is an airborne disease. Humans also catch it that way.
The biggest cause of death amongst AIDS patients is TB. This is because their immune systems are in bad shape so the disease takes hold
We (and cattle) are all exposed to many bacteria daily but they do not take hold if we have a healthy immune system.
 Cattle are not treated well and their immune systems are failing so of course you would expect disease to increase. All the things I listed above will cause their immune systems to weaken.
It would be interesting to know if there were as much TB amongst organic dairy farms?
Vaccines and antibiotics also harm the immune system
The answer is to prevent overcrowding in cattle sheds, feed them a natural diet of grass etc, no drugs, no phone masts on the land. This will result in a strong immune system and a disease free cow!

HI
I don’t have a mobile because of the dangers nor do my family.
The radiation is one and the most recent problems but  the poor diet and growth hormones and overcrowding also don’t help

So are you saying that we kill the person who is providing the poisoned sweeties??
Maybe the government lab didn’t analyse the sweeties properly and they didn’t realise it wasn’t the sweeties after all as they were not actually poisonous

Consider that the government didn’t know that the radiation emitted from the wifi routers on the walls of all the classrooms was a carcinogen and so they had not considered this as an eventuality and so had blamed the sweeties and the sweetie seller who they shot whilst he was proclaiming his innocence!

 safe sam,  It all theory  no absolute proof and the only certainty is  that its economically lead. TB is usually spread by sneezing and coughing. It is also spread in
other bodily fluids. The usual cattle to human route for M bovis
infection is via ‘raw’, untreated, milk. 

Transfer of bodily fluids  has alway been the most relaible way to transmit disaese. 
 Organic farms can be at risk just as much any other but many organic farms have older breeds which are more sturdy and better equiped to resist disease. So many modern dairy herds are of the holstein breed because they produce more milk. By what is in effect genetic engineering  the holstein has become prone to all sorts of ailments – they go lame if you look at them  they are poor and weakly animals This manipulation of a creature is down to a desire to produce cheep food to feed a world that is over populated with homo sapiens It saddens me to say it but its  the latter that need culling not the badger hope that helps

My personal position is that wildlife and people should try to co-exist peacefully. I live in rural Somerset and enjoy sightings of all kinds of wildlife; deer and badgers included. It seems important to me that there is not a knee-jerk reaction either for or against culling badgers, but rather an independent body which takes account of the animals needs as well as the farmers. As well as the controversial question of T.B badgers do make huge indents into land  previously used for crops and can be a nuisance with hens. Badgers can ruin gardens and kill pets. Farmers seem to loathe them and there are many tales of poisoning animals who are then placed on roads to look like road kill. I therefore feel that this situation should be looked at in a calm unbiased way so that farmers feel listened to and the badgers are actually properly protected from cruelty.

As the Government have been discussing the problem for 20 years Why have they not developed a vacine
Also the reaction to the test done by the vets may say only that the cows have been in contact with TB, the same as the reaction in humans, and as milk is pasturised and meat is not affected I feel it is money for the vets   Are they also to cull all the deer in the area affected.
, 

Nonsense!

This is the problem we have.  People like you that forget the advantages of our natural wildlife.  Most problems are created by humans.  We are destroying nature and wildlife habitats, when will we learn?!

Like the Government lie in so many situations that are an advantage to them.

Quite frankly, in this day and age, we do not need meat to survive.  Become a vegetarian, gone are the days of the cave man/woman, leave these poor animals in peace.  We would all be healthier, animals included! 

Totally agree.  It’s an income to farmers, and that is it basically!

Propoganda!

Propaganda, rather! 

Oh come on, use your brain! 

You are opening up a whole other issue here, have you researched vaccinations on children?  Don’t trust this government with anything. 

Yeah, let’s put ourselves before nature?

Yes, let’s get back to nature, most of these problems are man-made.  I wonder who is more intelligent?!

I totally agree, I think the problem is money! They really don’t care about the welfare of animals, it’s all about profit/greed.

An excellent argument howard, you totally floored him with that one!  You hit the nail on the head, it is all about morals, very much lacking in our society today, thanks to our Government, you only have to look at the hold that the Murdoch media ‘had’ (I hope) on our media empire. 

No, don’t forget the politics, this is about freedom of speech, we the voters, need to be heard. 

Vaccination is a big business, there is more to this than meets the eye!

Totally agree, some people are so arrogant, it will take the rest, or the end of their lives to realise this. 

Totally agree.  Soya milk and soya spread is both tasty and healthy!

They change the goalposts to suit.

Are you a farmer by any chance?   Or have some financial gain in not supporting this campaign?

Buy soya milk.

Get real

yeah the analogy breaks down pretty easily – you wouldn’t tell you mechanic how to fix your car, but neither would you ask him how to refine the petrol for it. Farmers should be able to look after their livestock, that doesn’t mean they have any insight into national environmentla policy.

The key to understanding bovine TB is the word ‘bovine’. It is not badger TB, it is bovine TB, a disease of cattle. They catch the disease, they pass it on to badgers who in turn can then pass it on to other cattle.
Killing all the badgers in Britain will not prevent cattle catching the disease in the first place. The bovine TB will still exist. Cattle will still catch it. And thousands of badgers will be dead for absolutely no reason.

If you want to address the problem of bovine TB then address the problem of bovine TB. But, don’t think for a minute that killing badgers will help. It is a really pointless act of shooting the messenger.

I fear that this issue has already become massively biased against a badger cull. Even 38 Degrees are quoting from C4 news, hugely lefty. Most of the people that vote yes will do so because they like cute fluffy badgers, which is as bad a standpoint as the Govs unconvincing science. 38 Degrees – well done on the forest campaign but really keep your nose (or snout) out of this one….

Just read a sickening load of townie twaddle. I’ve joined in previous 38 degrees campaigns, but now I’m out of here. Stick to what you understand.

I really feel sorry for the farmers. By pressing for a badger cull, they’ve shot themselves in the foot. They need a solution to the problem of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle and a badger cull is not it.

“The best prospect for control of TB in the British herd is to develop a cattle vaccine” – Krebs Report (1997)

“A cattle vaccine against bTB should be developed as a matter of priority and all legislative hurdles overcome to enable this to become the long term solution to bTB.” – The Wildlife Trusts

The problem is that vaccinated cattle test positive for bTB under the current procedures, which are regulated by the EU. Defra aim to have a licensed cattle vaccine and a workable test (DIVA) available by 2012. However, changing the EU procedures will not be completed until 2015. This is not good enough.

A lot of time and money has been spent on the proposal to vaccinate the badgers. The practical difficulties of capturing them all for vaccination make this unworkable. Rounding up a herd of cattle for vaccination should be considerably easier. When the cattle stop passing bTB to the badgers, it will die out completely or at least return to naturally low levels in the badger population.

Shooting badgers will not be easy. They are thick skinned animals with short legs, so do not present an easy target for a marksman. Many will go to ground injured and suffer a lingering death out of sight and unrecorded.

In response to the government’s public consultation on a badger control policy in 2010, 69% said no to culling.

A badger cull is a stop-gap measure to placate the farmers while a cattle vaccine is developed. It’s a response to the clamour that “Something must be done now”. The government are hoping that by the time its failure is apparent, the vaccine will be available. My hope and belief is that the public outcry will be so great that the cull will have to be abandoned.

In the 1970′s the government were culling grey seals, to placate the fishing industry. There was a public outcry. Ever since, the fishing industry has been in decline and the grey seals thriving. It was a great victory for the seals. It’s a lesson the farmers should heed.

Ah, the old’ townies’ arguement that bears no reflection to either..

a) The actual opinion of people who live in the countyr – the vast majority of whom are against a cull
b) The misrepresentation that ‘country’ folk know what is best for the environment – they dont – just look a t their record of managing the countryside for the last 50 years if you dont believe me.

Neil

I had to retire in 1992 from mixed Veterinary Practice in Hants/Dorset after 27 years. In that time, as a Local Veterinary Inspector, carrying out TB Tests, I had 5 individual reactors, of which only one showed any pathological signs post mortem. 
We thought we had conquered Cattle TB.
Now we have tens of thousands of cases in the West Country. Some mammals must be acting as reservoirs, and it would appear to be badger and/or deer.
Badgers have been shown to be infected on carriers. I cannot see how Lord Krebs take take his view; he certainly does not appear to think as the countryman does. The vast increase in Badger road-kill in the West of  England strongly suggests that Badgers have become much more numerous, and also that many of them may be chronically unwell.
As for vaccination. It is not a cure-all. The BCG vaccine used in humans was never very effective. So people should understand that some vaccines like Tetanus, are brilliantly effective, but others, such as Typhoid, less so.

It’s sad that because you strongly disagree with a readers comment it’s enough for you to abandon all the 38 degrees campaigns. Surely freedom of speech is also worth fighting for ? 

   Badgers have to be wiped out because they’ve caught a human disease, yeh that sounds fair, NOT.

The
sad thing here is the supposition that because people are not directly involved
in the issue  (although the knee-jerk destruction
of wildlife should be a concern for all) we should not be allowed to comment,
and it gets worse when you call 38 degrees irresponsible for bringing this to
people’s attention. You sound like another of those bigots who know what is
best for everyone.

they get involved because people now have a voice !

Yea…and lets hunt them with dogs !!!

The government needs to look at facts.  A 10 year independent culling trial culminating in 2007, costing the tax-payer £50m and killing thousands of badgers, was carried out by a scientific body reporting to DEFRA.  It concluded that culling badgers was not an effective way to control bovine TB spread in cattle.  In fact disturbing badgers caused the spread of TB to surrounding areas where TB didn’t exist.  The survey recommended efforts should focus on other measures.  Culling in hotspots will reduce the incidence of TB in cattle by 12-16% for a few years only.  It’s at least 84% ineffective.  An estimated 1 in 7 badgers carry the infection even in areas of high incidence of the disease in cattle.  A cull may kill 6 healthy badgers out of every 7.  In the 1960s the disease was rare – 1,000 cattle recorded with TB a year for 20 years (and only very minor culling).  The decision to abandon annual cattle testing in the mid 1980s followed by unrestricted movement of untested cattle has caused today’s problems.  The only way to reduce TB in both cattle and badgers is to vaccinate and restrict movement of cattle.

PS  In reply to the vet, the reason there is so much badger road-kill in the south-west is because farmers are already shooting and dumping bodies by the roadside.  I live in Cumbria where there are a lot of badgers (we have a large sett in our garden) and I rarely see road-kill.

Eunice

To use this as a method of disease control seems floored. To totally remove the perceived threat you will need to cause the extinction of a native British species. If only a proportion of the badger population is killed, assuming badgers are the cause of the infection, the threat of infection remains. It therefore follows that DEFRA  have a figure for acceptable infection rates. Has this been published?
It seems to me that the only long term sustainable solution is a two pronged attack; the development of a suitable vaccine for both cattle and badgers coupled to better testing and movement controls of livestock.

If you are a vet, you should have a scientific training, and therefore be able to differentiate correlation from causality.

There is no evidence that badger numbers have increased dramatically over the last 20 years.
Increases in badger road deaths does not mean that there has been a population explosion, because there can be other explanations. 

For example, road use has increased by >25% since 1992 (car ownership and car-miles/year) and there have been significant changes in land management over the last 20 years.
The cause of increased badger deaths could easily be increased marginalisation of badgers, with loss of available habitat, causing them to range further and cross busier roads.
My explanation may be wrong, but it is no less plausible than yours; which means that neither of us have an explanation that is so watertight that it justifies the expenditure of millions of pounds of public money.

Badgers, deer and many other wild mammals have shared land with cattle for a long period and, as you say, the TB problem has become worse over the last 20 years. 
So, we need to understand precisely what is responsible for this change of disease prevalence.

This is worth investing money in, because it might help to prevent other similar problems in the future, as well as helping us to maintain biodiversity alongside productive farming. The result could be lower disease rates and higher productivity.

So, what’s needed?
1) Properly identify the reservoir species.
2) Identify the changes in land management that have caused greater levels of disease in wild mammal populations and transfer into livestock.

Lord Krebbs was reviewing the science behind what could be a very expensive mistake.
It is a shame that politicians are not listening.

It seems that the reasons why this cull is likely to go ahead are:
1) Political promises in exchange for votes. The Conservative party made a promise to their rural electorate that a cull would happen. Now they are in power they have to deliver, even if it is a dumb idea.
2) “Thinking like countryman”. Yes, Lord Krebbs does not think like a countryman; he reviewed the scientific evidence behind a potentially costly policy error. “Thinking like a countryman” is precisely what got us into this situation; linking increased badger road deaths with increased badger numbers, increased badger disease levels, transfer into cattle etc, etc. This is a whole series of potentially false assumptions that make up a traditional “common sense” argument.

It is immensely depressing that in the 21st century we still have politicians commissioning science, and then ignoring the results because they would rather pander to popular ignorance.

One final point for the farming community; if this plan doesn’t work, you will be the ones to suffer.
Why? 
Simple; there won’t be any more money in the pot for dealing with this problem.

If TB rates don’t fall, the public outcry about wasted money and “badger murdering” will mean that it will be years before any government is willing to side with the farming community.

That means no more research, no solutions and no money to implement any further plans.

There is also a general issue of food security and bioterrorism.
We are at risk of further natural or manmade outbreaks of swine fever and foot and mouth disease, as well as worsening of endemic diseases such as bovine TB.
These are hugely costly diseases, and outbreaks have had very serious economic effects in the recent past.

By sticking to antiquated ideas about disease control, mostly originating in rigid European regulations that prevent the sale of vaccinated animal products, we perpetuate the risk of further outbreaks, and impose unnecessary and costly restrictions on the movement and management of livestock.

I am not sentimental about badgers; if a cull would work then it should be carried out.
However, the scientific evidence does not support a cull, and in any case a cull will only have a temporary effect.
As land use changes, and expands, we will need further culls and ongoing control of wildlife populations. 
This is unlikely to get cheaper in the future, and it still leaves us in the position that cattle farmers still dread positive TB tests in their animals.

It would be much better to invest money in the development of vaccines, and lobby for changes in EU law.
That would have a much more profound effect on farming and food security.

Thats the tory answer to everything, kill it. Bunch of toffy nosed sadistic inbred filth.

Aye, and if we, the voters are heard talking utter garbage regarding this issue, then we the voters are going to be regarded henceforth as a bunch of complete plonkers.

So, to the facts. BCG vaccine is live but weakened bovine TB. In humans it is vaguely effective giving between six months and five years of some resistance to TB, when it works (which it isn’t guaranteed to do). Vaccines only work on uninfected subjects, and are useless if the subject is already infected. The vaccine against TB at its most effective only slows down the disease, since the bacterium is not easy for the immune system to see; it even hides inside some immune system cells at times) and pure antibody responses simply do not touch it; a humoural response of general inflammation is all that slows down a TB infection.

Humans are quite resistant to tuberculosis; people can linger on untreated with consumption for years before they finally snuff it. Cows are similarly tough; they too can fight it off fairly well, as can sheep, deer, horses and so on. Camelids like llamas are very, very badly affected and hardly mount any immune response at all, and badgers, sadly, are almost as prone to TB infections. Brock is however a very tough customer and so can limp along slowly dying of TB for quite a long time shedding literally billions of infective TB bacteria as he does so.

It is how an animal responds to TB infection that is at the crux of this matter, since it is the effectiveness of the immune response that determines how much use vaccination is going to be. Vaccination against bovine TB is done by using a weakened but still live culture of bovine TB its self; an infection that the animal’s body can easily fight off and use to learn about TB in the process. Sadly this vaccination isn’t much use even in humans, and in badgers the DEFRA trials demonstrate that it merely slows down disease progression a bit, and this is with injected vaccine. No oral vaccine exists for TB for any animal, nor is there a great rush of enthusiasm to develop one commercially.

The reason that no company has developed an oral vaccine is simple: money. Trying to develop such a vaccine is only worthwhile if there is a market for it, and the only market so far is Britain and then only because our politicians are spineless idiots.

Back in the 1940s bovine TB was endemic in Britain. Cattle testing and culling with movement restrictions did most to curb this, and the remainder was done by proactive culling of badgers by gassing them in their setts. By the 1980s this had reduced the infective hotspots to a very few tiny, isolated areas which would have been cleared by the 1990s had the programme been continued. But, the point here is this: we have the technology to get rid of bovine TB and we have demonstrated that this can be done ONLY through cattle restrictions and gassing badgers; no oral vaccine needed.

So, it only takes a politician to grow a pair and re-institute a variant of this programme to rapidly solve the bovine TB problem, and to do so at a fraction of the cost of buying in huge amounts of expensive patented oral TB vaccine.

The final problem here is again down to money. At present Britain is officially clear of bovine TB, at the cost of about £80 million per annum in compensation to farmers for having stock culled. This figure is rising exponentially, and the real kicker is this: if the EU decides to reclassify Britain as having endemic TB, our export market will collapse as our EU trading partners, shameless opportunists that they are, take the opportunity to protect their own farmers from the competition we give them and bar all UK dairy and beef imports. If this happens then we lose a huge market and a lot of our farmers go bust, and the Government then craps its pants, panics and rushes through emergency legislation to try to solve the problem.

We’ve all seen government emergency legislation in the past. The reaction to Foot and Mouth was a panic reaction; hundreds of thousands on unexposed, uninfected animals slaughtered and burned and there was even a 100% effective vaccine against foot & mouth. We really, truly do not want to see government panic regarding TB infected badgers, so a compromise is in order.

There exist a number of effective single-dose animal contraceptives. Let us propose a very large-scale field trial of something like this: pro-active culling, reactive culling and contraceptive-only areas, and possibly contraceptive plus reactive culling. As my PhD supervisors always said: First do the experiment, then argue about the results.

Why is there no TB in Scottish cattle. Is it not a fact that illegal cattle movements go on all the time in England and Wales. Rich farmers and Landowners can easily change their land use to sheep or arable or campstes etc . To say any of these people will go bust is laughable. 

Humans go to great pains to find cures to their own diseases and longetivity of life and yet for other life forms they can only come up with death as the answer. Why not share the cures with other animal species as they are contagious across all specie.

 This is a big call for 38 Degrees so let’s hope we get it right.
 
  It might be best and stop for a moment to remember what ’38 Degrees’ is all about; pressurising politicians to do the right thing and make decisions that are best for the long term rather than what may seem short term popular. Culling badgers is about the least popular thing imaginable but may be necessary to halt the spread of a disease from a few localised areas to the rest of the country.
 
  If we ask the government to court short term popularity and allow TB to spread to the countryside to infect more badgers, deer, cats, dogs and ultimately people we will have lost our long-term vision.

[...] week we voted to decide whether or not to launch a campaign to stop the government’s plan to kill badgers.  The results are in – 87% of respondents said answered “Yes” to the question [...]

A few years ago there was an outbreak of TB amongst cattle in the Channel Islands. There are no badgers in the Channel Islands!

I’m not a scientist but even I could tell the government something ‘aint right here.

Caroline Spelman should have nothing to do with any decisions concerning Badgers.  She is from a farming backround and if this were a court of law she wouldn’t even be allowed on the jury due to a bias opinion.  Right now i am ashamed to be British, look what happened in Ireland , badgers pretty much wiped out and they still have bTB.   I am sick to death of hearing about the plight of the poor farmers, what happened to the farmers who were caught switching ear tags with healthy cattle, they don’t give a toss about their cattle, they are nothing but money grabbing greedy and selfish.  I’ve always done my best to support our farmers whilst shopping but no more, they don’t deserve my support.    I am absolutely sickened by this decision.

Couldn’t have put it better myself. My family live in the country and have done all our lives and we are completely against it as are the majority of people I know! This ‘townie’ argument comes up all the time and it’s rubbish.

Across the field from where I live is a dairy farmer. In spite of the fact that he has a small herd and a large acreage his cows are kept for days at a time, summer and winter, cooped up in a shed up to their udders in muck. This is simply bad animal husbandry and a breeding ground for diseases like bovine tuberculosis. This situation is repeated on many farms in the UK and is encouraged by unconditional subsidies. When our reactionary government and the rest of the gang have killed all the badgers who will be blamed? The fairies, the witches, the hedgehogs, the field mice, the tinkers, the Irish, the Polish, the South Africans, the wasps – who will be next for slaughter?

The farmer probably keeps them indoors to stop them coming into contact with badgers or badger excrement! Without controlling TB in wildlife then farmers will increasingly be under pressure to keep cattle housed 24/7 365 days a year  

it bovine tb – bovine means cattle. therefore it originates with cattle not badgers!

its bovine tb – bovine means cattle. therefore it originates with cattle not badgers. Wish they’d publicise the info you’ve given more widely!!

You are quite right.  The scientific evidence merely shows that there is a link between cows and badgers, but given badgers look under cowpats for grubs etc as food; it is likely that it is the cows who are the origin especially with their frequent, close and unsanitary confinements. 

I agree with much you have said…However evidence does exist that badger culling works, (although I am not advocating a cull in it’s presently proposed form). In the 1960′s we were virtually free of Tb in cattle. However if a farm went down with Tb, the then Ministry of Agriculture would draw a one mile ring around the farm and slaughter, (mostly by gassing) all the badgers in that area. For a period of one year, Min of Ag officials would return to the setts to ensure all the badgers had been killed. They used coloured baits to track individuals and groups of badgers.
The only reason I know this is because I met two “old boys” who had done this work when they visited our farm, not long after we started farming in 1986. They were still employed by the Min of Ag, but were now reading ear-tags and checking cattle movements. Killing badgers had long ceased, I believe before the 1981 Wildlife and countryside Act. From that date Tb began to spread alarmingly, so that now if you drew a mile ring around the infected farms the whole county of Devon would be covered coast to coast.
Being an organic farmer does not protect you from Tb, as we found out.
Every farmer will tell you that the best protection you have against Tb is a clean sett of badgers, however, once they are infected they become your worst enemy and for their own good as well as yours and your cattle, they need to be killed and their sett prevented from becoming a haven for more infected badgers from round about.
The spread of Tb has changed dramatically from that of the 1960′s and with the situation having been allowed to get out of hand, the present position is completely untenable.
It is possible, although nothing is 100%, to test a particular sett for Tb, by testing urine and saliva  samples from the surrounding area. The badger is the perfect vector for Tb, getting the disease in it’s kidneys and salivary glands and can survive for a year in that condition.
It would seem logical that it makes sense to remove infected setts and leave the clean ones. This would be a variation of the policy of the 1960′s when sett-side testing was not available, but would remove a good part of the infected (and suffering) badgers from the environment.
In my opinion, the shooting of badgers will result in someone getting shot and killed as people “take sides” and tempers fray, far better to deal with the problem on a sett by sett basis, gassing the infected ones and leaving the clean.
Sadly doing nothing is not an option any more.

I care passionately about cattle but why should badgers die just because farmers are too lazy to clean up their act?

hopefully the blasted farmers

utter rubbish rigby

and you call yourself a vet Mr Bellars? Compassion costs nothing – vaccines are the answer and farmers cleaning up their act!!!

i don’t feel sorry for farmers – only their cattle – these land owners are very well paid thanks to the subsidies they get from us tax payers. I wish I was as well off as a farmer – even a tenant farmer.

badger baiter are you? well I was born and raised in the countryside and I found that most farmers knew diddly about wildlife.

ooh another badger baiter – eh Jim?

Farmers would not survive without their subsidies – any money they get for their poor animals is the cream on the top. Ever been to an animal market? Well, they are disgusting places of misery for countless animals on their way to hell. Blaming badgers is just an excuse for farmers to ignore their own filthy farming practices.

I’ve known loads of farmers – none of them poor – two were tenant farmers too. So no more rubbish about poor farmers. They get very good subsidies and have a very nice standard of living. Ever noticed how quite a few get onto their local councils?. In fact there are more people related to farmers in the Welsh Assembly than from any other walk of life. Greedy the lot of them!. 

It’s simply not true that the Government has scrapped vaccination trials. Not only do they continue but farmers can also now get a licence to vaccinate against bovine TB. This is the more costly and less effective route. Your campaign is very one-sided and (I regret to say) all too predictable. I would invite any of those who signed the petition to see the horrible effects of bovine TB (preferably after they have enjoyed their morning cereal with milk or steak for dinner).

Better a Minister with a farming background than her predecessor who was a vegetarian. Wake up and smell the steak!

would you say the same if it was people about to be massacred?

It is such a shame that web sites like yours have to have such a biased view and do not explain to the general public the actual facts. Farmers do not want to eradicate badger completley. There is a badger population of approx 250,000 in the uk and the cull would be about 40,000 that still leaves an awfull lot of Badgers. In the past  when badger culling was used the TB problem was kept under control it was only when Badgers became protected that the TB problem escalated. Unless you are a farmer which you are definatley not you cannot understand the problems this is causing. So let the Farming community deal with their TB problem , try a cull and see if it helps.  You can make scientific reserch say what you want if you are biased

Slaughter! Slaughter! Slaughter! – Is this the only language Dairy Farmers know.

Killing badgers is not the answer! killing Dairy Farmers could be the way forward!

hi my name is martin,as a 65 year old i have seen all the badger/bovine tb news.the bovine tb problem has been around a long time.as a boy in the early 50s i would help my dad on his milk round.many people had tb tested milk.but there was never any word about badgers then,and thats when we still had hey stacks and hedgerows.vacinate the badgers.it isn,t their fault.after all it is bivine tb. who infected who.

 why are we allowing the goverment to cull badgers come on 38 degrees maybe we need to get on the streets informing people about what the greenest goverment ever is about to do and ask them to sign petition

I would just like to say that none of you on this website give the other side a chance to say anything and need to learn your facts and give dairy farmers a chance at saving their cow by doing the cull

again politics fails to listen to science.
Even
though culling badgers will cause them to search further afield for
potential mates thus increasing the spread of TB infection to cattle

Google scholar ‘badgers tb’ and make your own minds up.

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/06/29/rsbl.2011.0554.short

DAIRY FARMER – I dont think you realise, the people against this barbaric killing of the british badger arent against the farmer! i have always supported the local farmer, i buy free range eggs and locally produced meat and organic milk from smaller farms.  I feel for the farmers and for the cows but I do not agree going ahead with something unless it is going to result in a decent percentage decrease not like the silly little percentage decrease that bovine tb will drop if culling badgers.  something needs to be done which will result in a proper decrease of bovine tb.  instead of killing off our already dwindling british wildlife for a small descrease put the money towards finding a better solution that will have greater effects. if you were bothered to read a lot of our comments you would realise  that we have read up on the results and looked into things from both sides!!!!

I’m not against the farmers either, some farmers don’t believe it’s right to cull either. It’s the fact it’s cruel & wrong & £50 million was spent cage culling before & the results say it didn’t work & if at all the reduction in BTB would be only 16% or less over  a nine year period, work it out, vaccinating is a much more sensible solution, so as a badger vaccine is up and running & ready to use licenced & people are being trained how to do it why kill again.  It will create jobs too. 
They cage trapped & killed thousands before in proper research trials & that’s the science that says this isn’t the way.This new cull/killing is cruel/dangerous/risk of maiming/pertubation- disturbing settled setts through fear & disruption. Natural England told me they are going to take steps to try to stop pertubation – difficult whilst shooting in the dark with lights over a large area while shooting, & a real risk of maiming some animals. All to kill badgers who will be mainly healthy, when vaccinating & marking badgers who have been done by cage trapping can be done. It’s inhumane, can never be proved as humane & unecessary. They are not doing any research to collect statistics as far as I know, it’s an exercise to see how humane it is before they roll it out to other areas of England. So settled setts that have been there sometimes for a very long time are destroyed for no great good for the farmers. It’s wrong, vaccination & other controls firmly followed is the way. Cage trap to kill then so now cage trap to vaccinate. not shoot free running badgers.

Can anyone tell me of the outcome of a claim by a farmer that:- Having Salt Licks in his Fields prevented TB in cattle.
Has this been investigated if not why not.