Killing badgers is disastrous policy
I AM very disappointed that the Government is pressing ahead with the terminally misguided policy of killing badgers in England. I cannot call it a 'cull', as the most of those animals killed are likely to be healthy, as evidenced by a study from 2003 which found that 80 per cent of those killed were TB free.
As it is, the decision to allow farmers to shoot badgers on their own land is disastrous both in terms of animal welfare and of potentially spreading the disease.
This slaughter will happen away from the eyes of the public. There will be no way to monitor welfare, and orphaned cubs are liable to be left to die a long and lonely death in setts.
Badgers are highly territorial and largely stay in one area. However, killing badgers will cause survivors to travel to new areas. This could have the effect of pushing TB on to farmers' land where no TB exists.
This was one of the major concerns voiced by the largest ever study into bovine TB.
TB infection in cattle is actually falling in the UK, not going up. Overall there were 438 fewer Total New Herd TB incidents in 2009 compared with 2008, with cases falling in both Wales and the South West.
How can this devastation of our natural wildlife be justified when TB infection is falling?
This wildlife massacre is not only cruel, it is not needed, as scientists in Dublin have perfected an oral vaccine that is effective in tackling the disease in badgers.
These scientists have said that this method is the only way to control TB in the badger population in the long term.
This would also be a cost-effective and humane way of getting farmers involved.
However, the bottom line is that bovine TB is a disease of cattle, and cattle-to-cattle is undeniably the main vector. Killing badgers while ignoring this is akin to fiddling while Rome burns.
It is also worth pointing out that the number of cattle killed each year because of TB is dwarfed by those killed because of mastitis, lameness and infertility. Yet we never hear about those.
Justin Kerswell
Viva! Campaigns Manager
York Court Wilder Street Bristol
Comments
by Francis Kirkham, Nymet Rowland
Tuesday, September 21 2010, 11:49AM
“I agree wholeheartedly with Justin Kerswell that allowing farmers to kill badgers is about the worst thing the government could do if they want to kerb bovine TB. As Dr Rosie Woodroffe - a badger ecologist at the Institute of Zoology who worked for a decade on the largest ever UK badger culling study - has said: "I think it is scientifically among the worst options they could have chosen....We consider it likely that licensing farmers to cull badgers would not only fail to achieve a beneficial effect, but would entail a substantial risk of increasing the incidence of cattle TB and spreading the disease."
A number of control methods other than badger culling have been introduced over the last couple of years, including restrictions on cattle movement and enhanced TB testing regimes. It seems stupid to go ahead with an approach that has been identified as almost certainly not worthwhile, and quite ridiculous to do so before an assessment has been possible of the effectiveness of the measures already in place.
For badger culling to be effective, near complete control would have to be achieved and over a very large area. Culling would therefore have to be compulsory, since a significant number of landowners would not voluntarily allow badgers to be killed on their land, let alone do it themselves.
For the government to sanction the killing of badgers by farmers as an approach to controlling bovine TB would be inept in the extreme.”