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Badger


francine

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I really don't understand what the animal rights muppets are complaining about.

 

There is strong evidence that badgers play a major role in passing bovine TB from one herd to another, so the plan is to have a trial cull of badgers in a limited area. It'll either work, or it won't. Bovine TB in the trial areas will either decrease, or it won't.

 

Then we'll know. That's the whole point of a trial.

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That is the bit I don't get though.  

 

There was a scientific bloke interviewed on TV today (I can't remember his name) but he was one of the chaps who instigated the very first trials of badger culling years back in the hope of eradicating bTB and he was basically saying it was a waste of time.  Although it had some effect the success rate was no where near as high as expected.

 

Seems that Scotland and Wales (was it Wales maybe not but you can google) have really low rated of bTB now and it has been done through immunisation rather than culling.

 

I know this latest cull is just a trial but to me killing god knows how many badgers 'just to see' is pretty barbaric especially as they are targeting any that just happen to be out and about in the firing line... quite literally. 

 

If it turns out they were completely wrong will they send a letter of apology to orphaned little Billy the Badger of Grandad Badgy who's left alone after seeing his whole family wiped out by a paid marksman ?

 

Ok so maybe that last sentence was a bit silly... but for years badgers and their sets have been protected by law.  Seems that's changed now then....

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I really don't understand what the animal rights muppets are complaining about.

 

There is strong evidence that badgers play a major role in passing bovine TB from one herd to another, so the plan is to have a trial cull of badgers in a limited area. It'll either work, or it won't. Bovine TB in the trial areas will either decrease, or it won't.

 

Then we'll know. That's the whole point of a trial.

Difficult to chose between the so called 'animal rights muppets' and the muppets in government. If this is only a trial and then we will know, why then have the government cancelled five badger vaccine trials. If badgers are responsible for the spreading of TB then why not cull deer, goats, pigs, dogs and cats who can also spread the disease. There is evidence to say that TB is mostly spread from cattle to cattle rather than from badgers, as there are areas in the country where there are no badgers but there are infected cattle. While partly agreeing that a cull may well see a reduction in the numbers of infected cattle I find it hard to agree with anything the so called government experts say.

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By no means all cattle in Scotland or Wales are immunised - only a tiny minority, in fact.

 

And those beasts that are either rare breed collections or, more often, herds of young male dairy cows which most farmers would have just culled at birth, but some have now started to fatten up intensively for pet food.

 

Over 28,000 cattle had to be destroyed last year in England alone after testing positive for TB, 38,000 in the UK as a whole - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-21770711

 

Set against that, a trial cull of a few thousand badgers to see if they really are at the root of the problem is definitely the lesser of two evils.

 

From what I've read, even if there is solid proof that badgers are a major cause there is no question of a mass cull nationwide. I believe that in that event the plan would be a major (very expensive and long term) program aimed at immunising the badgers themselves and eliminating TB in their populations.

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  • 4 months later...
By no means all cattle in Scotland or Wales are immunised - only a tiny minority, in fact.

 

And those beasts that are either rare breed collections or, more often, herds of young male dairy cows which most farmers would have just culled at birth, but some have now started to fatten up intensively for pet food.

 

Inky, are you sure?. :wink:

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