Badger cull: do you sympathise with the saboteurs

[thepasty]

The cull should be nationwide.

[al4x]

 

A simple search on google reveals lots of TB carriers. Besides cattle and badgers the list includes humans, all primates, goats, pigs, cats,dogs, buffalo, bison, possums and deer.

So an ill thought out scheme to kill badgers is pointless unless the whole suspect list is tackled at the same time. I firmly believe that a cull is just a case of doing ANYTHING rather than nothing. Kill the badgers but allow the deer, dogs and feral cats roam at will.

That doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

 

no other animal excretes it in their urine to quite the same degree as badgers and shares grazing land. The issue with badgers is they are incredibly hard to keep out even if you keep cattle inside all the time keeping them out of the feed areas is nigh on impossible.

 

Pasty it shouldn't be nationwide for the simple reason that badgers aren't carrying the disease nationwide, however it is spreading the longer they watch it carry on and don't do anything.

[al4x]

No ones ignoring it...im just simply stating that I have no experience or evidence of it working in England and Wales...if you do then by the same token post it up!

 

If the cull works I am all for it but I have serious doubts along with millions of others... who don't happen to be either shooters or dairy farmers.

 

The cull is only a part of the strategy, couple culling with severe restrictions on the movement from infected herds and various other bio measures and you start to have a plan. The Irish strategy is clear have an infected herd you cull the reactive cattle, place a movement ban on the farm then cull the badgers in a given radius and wait a prescribed period between positive tests before lifting the movement ban.

 

Its common sense and at the same time verging on the worst form of cruelty to farmers to try and make them farm while a wild vector will continually re infect their livelihood, most of the areas in question aren't really suited to giving up cattle as thats the only other option they have

[FalconFN]

 

A simple search on google reveals lots of TB carriers. Besides cattle and badgers the list includes humans, all primates, goats, pigs, cats,dogs, buffalo, bison, possums and deer.

So an ill thought out scheme to kill badgers is pointless unless the whole suspect list is tackled at the same time. I firmly believe that a cull is just a case of doing ANYTHING rather than nothing. Kill the badgers but allow the deer, dogs and feral cats roam at will.

That doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

Most of the species on that list aren't an issue as very few of them are roaming the countryside, and those that are have fairly low levels of tb. Granted, it isnt a perfect solution by any means but until there is a viable alternative the only weapon they have is a cull - even if the most optimistic forecasts suggest only a modest drop in new tb cases.

[al4x]

the fundamental is though that a drop is a drop bear in mind the rapid increase going on at the moment and the results are better than they sound.

 

With regard to deer, they are managed throughout the areas in question and TB is a notifiable disease and stalkers trained to identify it, finding it is pretty rare even if you stalk a lot in the areas with high levels of TB in cattle and the badger population

[Kes]

If the saboteurs get there way with this cull its only a matter of time before we lose the right to shoot anything - what is the animal lovers view of deer, foxes, pheasants etc.

Given the evidence on Btb which as I said is compelling and not propaganda, we lose the right to cull badgers, we stand on the edge of a precipice it will be simply a matter of time. Why cull deer? Foxes control other pest species, Grouse are rare. Pheasants are raised to be killed. Get behind sensible control or sell your guns because you wont need them if this fails. Just MO.

[Scully]

If the antis are so sure it wont work,then why don't they let it go ahead and prove their point? They could then take the moral high ground and say 'told you so'. Do they doubt their own convictions perhaps?

What many of the opposers don't realise,or wont admit,is that Badgers were not given protection due to their rarity,but rather to stop baiting.I don't think their numbers were ever under threat,but with no control they have grown out of control.TB or not,they need to be controlled,just like foxes.

[FalconFN]

If the antis are so sure it wont work,then why don't they let it go ahead and prove their point? They could then take the moral high ground and say 'told you so'. Do they doubt their own convictions perhaps?

I don't think they doubt their conviction at all, they just hold a different opinion. There are different types of people opposed to the cull; sensible and intelligent people that have looked at the facts and have decided a cull is the wrong policy; wet-eyed and menopausal women whose kids have flown the nest and need something to protect; sensitive folk that can't, or won't, see the bigger picture and think that death is an avoidable part of life if only humans didn't get involved; justice warriors that aren't happy unless they have something to be offended about and a few others that just want to have something to do on a weekend.

 

The only ones I can respect are in the first category.

[Gimlet]

 

With regard to deer, they are managed throughout the areas in question and TB is a notifiable disease and stalkers trained to identify it, finding it is pretty rare even if you stalk a lot in the areas with high levels of TB in cattle and the badger population

 

I'm not a biologist so I may be wrong, but applying some common sense I would say deer are less susceptible to TB infection because, firstly, they are essentially browsers rather than grazers - they do not ingest the vast quantities of grass that cattle do, and secondly they do not produce the copious nasal mucus of cattle. TB developes in the nasal passages and lungs, rather than surviving a passage through the gut. Cattle grazing grass contaminated with infective badger urine or faeces will readily absorb the bacillus into their nasal passage through their mucus. They would therefore be particularly vulnerable to contaminated grazing. Far more so than deer, or for that matter sheep, which do not produce the heavy mucus either.

 

But, again, even with TB taken out of the equation, there is a compelling case for controlling badgers anyway. They are out of control and their numbers threaten the ecological balance and the survival of other species. The British countryside is not natural. All of it is man-made and the established balance of flora and fauna we have grown up with requires the intervention of man to be maintained. No-one is seeking the extermination of badgers, only their control so their numbers once again fit into the artificial niche we have made for them in our artificial landscape.

Personally, I'd favour reversion to wilderness, but that would mean culling humans, about 60 million of them, at least. And I don't expect the antis would like that either. They cannot have their cake and eat it. Its time to grow up.

[spanj]

IMO the problem with the cull is that its only likely to reduce the overall incidence of TB by 16% (can't remember which source this came from but its often quoted), this doesnt seem a high enough rate to warrant the action. The only sensible action is to vaccinate the cattle, with the proviso that the farmer MUST not bear the cost as it is a public health issue.

 

edited to say, have no time for rent a mob either

Edited August 28, 2013 by spanj

[Sprackles]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2404532/Anti-badger-cull-group-claim-torched-16m-police-firing-range-burned-ground.html

 

Not doing themselves any favours here are they..

[johnlewis]

The only thing I have to say is a person that I know made a comment to me that he was a dairyman on a farm for 30 years before being made redundant after the herd was sold said he can never remember any T.B. in any of his milking herd so how come it has now flared up as the badgers were here then.

[Kes]

The only thing I have to say is a person that I know made a comment to me that he was a dairyman on a farm for 30 years before being made redundant after the herd was sold said he can never remember any T.B. in any of his milking herd so how come it has now flared up as the badgers were here then.

 

Intensification in numbers brings disease. One farmer I know had one sett in 1970, he now has 15 on a reduced acreage. When you allow anything, even humans to be kept under itensive conditions, diseases multiply through increased contacts. Fwer number isolate disease - hence a cull. Check out the 'Irish Experience of Btb.

[Paddy Galore!]

all valid points gents, i sympathize with the badgers and the cows, but needs must as they say, i just hope it's not all for nothing. as for the sabs, they could do with thinning out a bit

[CharlieT]

bTB, which is a different strain to "human" TB has increased steadily over the past 20 years, almost in correlation to the increase in badger numbers. When we used to shoot them and dig them numbers were kept in check and cattle remained clean as did the deer.

 

Since protection badger numbers are extremely high and like anything else that reaches saturation densities, disease spreads within and becomes endemic. Unlike other mammals who suffer from and carry bTB, the badger has the ability to easily spread the disease to other grazers, hence cattle and increasing numbers of deer with bTB. The badger appears to be the perfect host for the disease and I'm afraid to say for his sake and the future well being of all the other animals who suffer from BTB a swinging cull is necessary and beneficial.

 

It's a peculiar thing but locally as badger numbers rise and fall so does the incidence of bTB in my herd, a clear pointer to me that the two are related. No badgers no bTB.

 

Of course the other spin off from reduced badger numbers will be the benefits to ground nesting birds and hedgehogs.

 

I would not like to see the badgers protected status lifted, we have enough quarry species already but as a beef farmer I sincerely believe this cull should be given a fair chance to prove itself so that if successful it can be rolled out to bTB hot spots all over the UK and thus stem the tide of bTB until a cattle vaccine is available in 10 + years time.

[White Lodge]

Sorry lost intrest when I saw it was in the Guardian.

I'm all for it, if it doesn't solve tb at least hedgehogs, ground nesters and hedgerow birds might have a look in for a while. To my mind badgers are just another top level predator given too much protection.

[shootnfish]

I cant see that culling badgers is going to help birds that much when there's tens of thousands of cats roaming where they please killing anything they come across.

[Paddy Galore!]

sod it! why don't we just kill anything that moves then?

[shootnfish]

Who mentioned killing anything that moves?

[Paddy Galore!]

Who mentioned killing anything that moves?

just making light of the situation shootfish, don;t take it personally

[shootnfish]

No worries

[Paddy Galore!]

cool

[Fisheruk]

At the end of the day, whichever animal has TB is in a bad way. Badgers suffer a miserable and very unpleasant death from it. Eradicating TB from the UK - as the country came close to before - has got to be the aim. I don't understand why the Government can't just grow up and get on with it. Removing bTB will leave a healthier badger population, no mass compensation for farmers who have seen the number of cattle destroyed each year increase in an unstoppable spread of the disease, and the unnecessary slaughter and health risk of having TB rife in the countryside.

 

They are doing a cull in the Republic of Ireland and it is having great results. I find it strange that some are trying to argue that badgers are not a very large part of the problem (not on here I hasten to add!), or that a cull won't work. A cull will work, it just needs to be extremely heavy, as I believe this one is going to be. I personally think the system in Ireland where every time a cow (they are routinely tested) comes up as a reactor they cull the badgers in a certain radius of the farm. Once TB is gone it's gone, no one is advocating culling healthy badgers, of course some of the ones in this cull may well be unaffected by the disease, but by focusing on the very worst areas where the disease is rife in the badger population this will be reduced.

 

The Government dropped the ball on TB at about the same time they dropped it on grey squirrels, and look at where that has got us.

+1 couldn't have put it better sir.

[Old Bull]

IMO if it saves one herd then it will be worth it as I can't imagine what it would be like to loose a dairy herd that they have farmed for years, it would devastate me if we lost any and we only keep ours for around six months. Just my opinion though.

[keg]

Fully support the cull, no sympathy whatsoever with the antis, sabs or whatever you want to call them. Ignorant, urbanised oafs who should have no involvement in the management of the landscape.

Even if badgers were not the major vector for bovine TB (I don't know why its called "bovine", its the same TB that infects other species, including humans), they should be on the general license anyway. They are pests. They cause great damage to farmland and to other species. They have caused localised extinctions of hedgehogs. Thanks to man they have no natural predators or competitors and it is our responsibility to maintain a balance when we have deprived nature of the means to do it. The predation and disease crisis caused by badgers is a direct result of their over-protected status. Get them shot.

Well said.