Badgers

[MKG]

I'm sorry - this makes me so angry.

There is a much greater risk of the spread of any cattle disease from the government rather than badgers (this one has been proved - F&M definitely came via a government-sponsored lab. No-one has ever proved that badgers are insrtumental in the spread of bovine TB).

A plea to cull badgers can only come from sad people who are looking for extra subsidies. I am so angry about this that I think I'd head a counter movement to cull certain stupid farmers.

Leave the f***ing badgers alone. They belong in this world. They have rights.

It's stuff like this which makes me feel militant.

[marshlander]

The badgers in Nrth lincs. are free from TB but, as I said in another thread, when I mentioned to our farming neighbours we had badgers in the garden they offered to shoot them!

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Oooohhhh don't get me started! Oops, you have.

This sort of thing drives me foaming mad. Even if poor old Brock does spread the odd case of TB, it is clear that most bovine TB comes about through poor husbandry.

Think back to when TB was really rife in humans in Europe: where it spread like wildfire was in the damp, rundown, overcrowded urban slums. Now think under what conditions most cattle live. Is it just possible that there might be a link????

But the powers that be will do anything rather than admit that the real issue is wealfare and management and not the humble badger.

Of course culling badgers would have nothing whatsoever with clearing a nominally protected species off potential prime building land, would it?

[Martin]

I'd suggest a cull of the tossers who suggested this -against all sane informed advice!
next best - sign the RSPCA petition here - http://www.backoffbadgers.org.uk/

[MKG]

Done, Martin - and thanks. I didn't know there was such a petition. Signing this is highly recommended for anyone who wants a landscape vaguely like that of their parents ... grandparents ... you know how this goes ...

[Martin]

They're lovely animals, and were here before we were!
Whether it be a badger-baiter, or a government ministry backed operative, I'd fell the buggers before they got close.........!

[Mainer in Exile]

Just listened to the BBC's Farming Today, about the badger cull in Wales. This Christianne Glossop sounds like she has a real problem with badgers, apart from the TB problem. The show outlined a couple of suggestions to deal with the problem apart from a cull, but Dr. Glossop wanted nothing to do with it. I never thought I'd hear a veterinarian express such hatred of an animal.

[MKG]

Amazing - I've just seen some of the data on which the "need" for a badger cull is based. The numbers for the decade 1987 to 1997 show an increase in cattle affected by bovine TB (and slaughtered) at a time when badger culling was practised. No doubt this ten-year "blip" is the exception which proves the rule. Laughable!!!

EDIT: All I need now are the figures for beef prices versus the amount of compensation paid, and I wonder what I'll find there?

[red]

there is some suggestion that culling badgers does not help - you wipe out the local badger population and in comes a new bunch bringing the disease with them.
and its often said, its the other way around, that the badgers catch TB from the cows.

still gutting for farmers to destroy animals that fail the tb test

I think its fantastic that large mammals such as foxes and badgers still live wild in the UK., and am pleased to see either of them...although not if they are making off with my chickens.

We have badgers living nearby and see them often on our fields at night. They make runs under our fences, and dig holes in the grass for grubs. which is a slight nuiciance. I know they can take poultry, so I have mixed feelings about their presence,

[Smooth Hound]

Problem is the ones thatdidnt have the disease were probably dead before they were tested, so it is a bit late to let it go again, cant imagine there being a way of testing badgers anyother way. Its people interfering with things they dont understand again, human arrogance

[snapdragon]

as far am I'm concerned it's time they started thinking about reducing the amount of cattle on the land, human beings do not need the huge amount of animal milk that they currently consume. ( or throw away)

[MINESAPINT]

Just come across this thread. If I attempted to grow carrots on my garden year after year and they were consistently wiped out by the carrot fly I would see sence and stop growing them. I might grow more peas or beans which I find more successful. Having said that if the government were paying me £5 for every carrot that suffered due to the carrot fly I might have a rethink and plant my whole garden with carrots, plant them even closer & rent my neighbours garden & fill it with carrots!

Is it not possible for farmers in affected areas to change their farming methods and grow something more appropriate in the prevailing circumstances. To me it is like me trying to grow Lemons, Oranges & Bananas on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors where I live. Oh but I am forgetting something. If my crop failed the subsidy for Lemons, Oranges & Bananas that fail is £10 each.

Problem is what can we actually do? I will sign the RSPCA petition.

I went walking on the moors the other day. Should have been a pleasant experience & I did see a common lizard & an adder but I also saw some crows in a trap scurrying about waiting for the game keeper to come along & shoot them.

Additionally I have lived in this location for 10 years & have twice seen foxes & recently I believe I heard one screaming, it was certainly a noise I am not familiar with & commented to my wife I thought it was a fox. However on ALL these 3 occasions a couple of hours later the chaps & chapesses turned up in their red coats.

While I have been typing this it has been on the news that hundreds of birds of prey are being shot by shooters & gamekeepers. I did find a dead sparrowhawk recently.

Furthermore I have just found a dead barn owl. No evidence but possibly due to use of rat poison.

I even noticed Monty Don on TV the other night using slug pellets.

The human race will not be satisfied until it is the only surviving life on the planet!

MINESAPINT

[MINESAPINT]

Just thought I could make it clearer about the foxes. I have only seen or heard them on the 3 occasions mentioned. Not on any other occasions. Too much of a coincidence that the hunt turned up later in the day on each of these 3 occasions. What is going on?

MINESAPINT

[marshlander]

An update;-

"Britain's top animal disease scientists have launched a devastating attack on the government's "mindless" badger cull, accusing ministers of failing to tell the truth and demanding the immediate abandonment of the killings.

The intervention by dozens of the nation's most senior experts, in a letter in the Observer, comes as farmers prepare to begin the cull in Gloucestershire and Somerset, possibly as early as tomorrow. The government's own chief scientist has refused to back the killings.

More than 30 eminent animal disease experts describe the cull as a "costly distraction" that risks making the problem of tuberculosis in cattle worse and that will cost far more than it saves."

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/en ... l-mindless

[MKG]

At least people are beginning to show some sense ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19981171

The article has an interesting map showing the correlation between bovine TB and badger population. It shows ... errmm ... little or no correlation.

Mike