Badger cull ..

[devon TWiG]

I own a small woodland (4 acres ) if there is badgers in it , is my permission sought to allow the cull to go ahead , or am i just informed , or neither ? How do they know where the badgers are ? Or can I shoot them myself and claim a reward ? ( not serious about the last bit !! ) I am just curious about the above questions and DO NOT want peoples political opinions about the cull !!!

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

I own a small woodland (4 acres ) if there is badgers in it , is my permission sought to allow the cull to go ahead , or am i just informed , or neither ? How do they know where the badgers are ? Or can I shoot them myself and claim a reward ? ( not serious about the last bit !! ) I am just curious about the above questions and DO NOT want peoples political opinions about the cull !!!

 

I would have thought you'd need to give consent..... otherwise it'd be armed trespass.

[Paul in the woods]

Your permission would be required as you can't shoot over someone's land without permission (unless you're in the police/army etc).

 

I expect most culls will be done one large farms that have livestock and active badger setts.

 

As for knowing if you have them, do you have any signs? Larger recently worked burrows, freshly dug holes with fresh droppings in them (look more human like than most animals and at the moment full of blackberry pips!).

 

Funnily enough I have badgers on my woodland and I enquired about vaccinating them but no one was interested.

[shillo]

I only know of farmers that are involved with the cull, they were approached by a representative, those that agreed paid a fair bit of dosh, were given/share special traps and special cartridges to dispatch any caught. They also have a special licence to cull the animals. Im sure if you were caught killing badgers without the proper licence you could be prosecuted. farmers have to bag em and tag em and take them to a collection point. some did not agree for fear of reprisals from anti cull people.

 

Interesting to see if it reduces tb

[pycoed]

Your permission would be required as you can't shoot over someone's land without permission (unless you're in the police/army etc).

 

I expect most culls will be done one large farms that have livestock and active badger setts.

 

As for knowing if you have them, do you have any signs? Larger recently worked burrows, freshly dug holes with fresh droppings in them (look more human like than most animals and at the moment full of blackberry pips!).

 

Funnily enough I have badgers on my woodland and I enquired about vaccinating them but no one was interested.

 

 

There is a world wide shortage of the BCG vaccine for human use (it's the one they use for badgers too) so all non human use has been stopped.

It's only at best 58% effective on cattle, AFAIK noone knows whether it is effective on badgers, but in any case it does not prevent the individual badger from carrying TB. It also will need to be repeated annually to continue to be of any use at all.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Tried my hardest mindful of your request not to get political views.....

 

But.... (and in part prompted by the question 'interesting to see if it reduces tb')

 

Here it comes anyway!

 

The badger cull, in my opinion, is a reckless, irresponsible and fanciful squandering of public money on a piecemeal approach, designed and intended more as an appeasement to the pernicious lobbying of the NFU which has, and will continue to have no significant positive effect upon bringing the disease under control.

 

Where the figures for cattle loss to bTB are applied as a justification for the badger cull, whilst simultaneously glossing over, for example, the self imposed cattle losses to mastitis in intensively farmed dairy herds, the morality of the justification is immediately exposed as the progression of self interest rather than a balanced and comprehensive policy to resolve the issue.

 

The agricultural sector needs to look inwards at bio-security, husbandry, intensive farming and transportation to name but a few issues which may have an equal or greater contributory effect upon the prevalence of bTB than that supposedly caused by wildlife.

[drinksloe]

But there is only so much boi security u can put in place on a farm.

 

A fairly modern dairy farm it may not be uncommon for the cows never to be outside grazing in some systems, yet they still can contract bTB time and time again?

How can u improve boi security any more?

I really don't think there is an awful lot of doubt that bTB is carried by badgers and that is wot is constantly re infecting herds.

If it was due to animal movement or other husbandry factors why can u get a positive or reactor test, u follow the protocol (culling and movement restrictions and testing) and it never reapears when outside these tb hotspot areas

 

Even ignoring the whole bTB thing.

The ammount of crop damage they cause buy diigging up fields or lost ground due to setts and esp so with damage to maize crops which they seem to thrive on.

 

Wot about the mounting scietific research about badgers and hedge hogs?

Its becoming more and more obvious that badgers are having a serious affect on hedge hog numbers, and science is now confirming this.

 

Badgers can also decimate any ground nesting birds or bumble bees etc

 

In many areas now badger numbers will be far higher than fox numbers, yet no one seems to care that folk shoot foxes.

In most of europe they still hunt/shoot badgers and numbers/densities are no where near wot we have in this country.

Very hard to see any reason for there current level of protection.

 

I too think it is a massive waste of money, but think it should be opened up country wide to reduce numbers, some folk will some won't so u will never wipe them out anyway but even bagers would benefit froma smaller healthier population

[Saw-sick Steve]

This article may be of interest -

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/05/bovine-tb-not-passed-on-through-direct-contact-with-badgers-research-shows

Prof Alastair MacMillan, veterinary adviser for Humane Society International/UK, said: “The suggestion by some that TB is spread by frequent nose-to-nose contact between badgers and cattle has now been completely dismissed.”

 

“It is much more likely that contamination by cattle of fields and yards by [TB bacteria] is the cause of repeated TB herd breakdowns,” said MacMillan, a former Defra scientist. “It’s clear that the government must divert the substantial resources being used needlessly to cull badgers and instead improve farmer education and biosecurity on farms.”''

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

This article may be of interest -

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/05/bovine-tb-not-passed-on-through-direct-contact-with-badgers-research-shows

Prof Alastair MacMillan, veterinary adviser for Humane Society International/UK, said: “The suggestion by some that TB is spread by frequent nose-to-nose contact between badgers and cattle has now been completely dismissed.”

 

“It is much more likely that contamination by cattle of fields and yards by [TB bacteria] is the cause of repeated TB herd breakdowns,” said MacMillan, a former Defra scientist. “It’s clear that the government must divert the substantial resources being used needlessly to cull badgers and instead improve farmer education and biosecurity on farms.”''

 

Quite, just wait for the study, funded by DEFRA, to be (a) ignored by government and roundly condemned by the NFU.... You couldn't make it up!

 

The Costs of Mastitis in UK Dairy Herds

 

Mastitis in dairy cows

 

"...Mastitis treatment and control is one of the largest costs to the dairy industry in the UK, and is also a significant factor in dairy cow welfare...."

 

Not to mention excessive use of antibiotics in the food chain.....

[drinksloe]

There is a lot of skewed or conflicting info out there.

It suits the papers agenda's, i'd actually argue protection should be lifted off badgers full stop country wide, there is no scientifc or ecological reason now why they need protecting.

 

There is also plenty of studies that have linked bTB to badgers

So a dairy cow which never goes into a field, how is that coming into contact with field based bTB, or by same token how is it spreading bTB spores in the field anyway to reinfect the herd.

If u read the statement he said nose to nose transfer from badger to cow, i doubt think many people ever even thought it was transfered that way

 

How would u feel, doing a job u love that ur family has done for generations, but u cannot imprve ur herd or move forward as u know at any time ur herd could be culled throu bTB and there is absolutely nothing to stop it happening again and again. That expensive bull/tup (ram) will no doubt be 1 that is infected so ur wasting ur money even investing in decent stock for the farm

 

 

If u honestly think farmers are pumping anti boitics into animals needlessly u know a completely different set of farmers to me.

For a start anti boitics are not cheap so no farmer is going to spend money he doesn't have to.

Also any animal treated has a withdrawl period so u can't put meat or milk into the food chain for a certain period of time.

esp with milk, samples are taken from every tanker and can be big fines if any anti boitics found in the milk (means it can't be used for cheese productiion) 1 single cow's milk can contanimnate a whole tanker load.

So why would a dairy farmer, really struggling to make a profit at minute spend money putting needless chemicals into a cow and then be forced to pour the milk away?? It just doesn't happen

 

As for mastitis yes it can be a problem but throu good husbandry/practices it can be minimised also it only costs the farmer if he is losing cows not the tax payer which is the case with bTB or reactors

 

 

The food chain has never been as healthy, well atleast from UK slaughtered stock.

Do u really think the boatloads of frozen beef imported from africa and S america every week are all up to the same stanard?

It wasn't that many years ago u only had to cross the irish sea to get beef grown with 'angel dust'