Grow Your Own Magazine

Jeannine has just sent me a press release, written by the RSPCA, about the proposal (by a group of MPs) that a badger cull could be useful in some parts of the country afflicted by bovine TB. Don't know how you grapes feel about this, but it seems pretty loopy to me!

The notes at the end of the press release contain the basic facts:

Notes to Editors

1.The Independent Scientific Group on bTB (ISG) was tasked by the UK Government with undertaking specific research on the effects of badger–culling on TB in cattle. The painstaking work took eight years, cost the lives of over 11,000 badgers and cost taxpayers £34 million. The ISG concluded that “badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain” and said, “Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone."
2.Defra’s public consultation on badger-culling prompted a record 47,472 responses – 95% of which opposed a cull.

If you feel motivated, there's a petition online at RSPCA || Badgers

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Resistance is fertile

I believe that I know of the gentleman who headed up this survey! He told us (he was running a 'nature' course that I attended) that It was not the fault of badgers!
So I say.....NO not a good idea- is it that the government just wants to be seen doing something????? even if it might be the wrong thing.

soap box moment coming up! sorry

Thanks for drawing that to our attention Paul, I will be telling every one I know.

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

Well people I sit on the other side of the fence on this one . On the family farm at home and all our neighbours farms badgers are culled (different laws over here in N.I.). Iv'e see what T.B. can do to healthy cattle and have no problem in culling them. I accept that this may not be pleasant reading for some of you but in the community I am from the opposite view is held . While the scientific community can't make up their minds one way or another about badgers we will go with what works . At home we have not had TB within 5 miles of our farm . So with a herd of 150 cows valued at £1200/ cow and a total investment of over £1.5 million in a farming business would any of the rest of you take the chance? I think not.

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Et tū, quis es?

I am only a simple country yokel but why should some thing that has been on the land for thousands of years be slaughtered for the benefit of domesticated animals that are newcomers to the land 500 years or so Swallows and blackbirds beware jacob

Because these animals provide food for a large percentage of the population. If you don't want to have to import all the meat and associated products that the dairy and beef industries produce from overseas you have to make choices . They may not be pleasant ones but they still have to be made.

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Et tū, quis es?

The earth still flat in NI then Beefy?

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

ISG is one lot SBP you know as well as I do that if I spent 5 mins with google I could produce as much evidence on the other side of the argument .

The earths not flat? Prove it

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Et tū, quis es?

I've not fell off it yet!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Science chief urges badger cull
There you go SPB the other side of the arguement.

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Et tū, quis es?

Until they decide to eat them!

I think you'll find that 'Science Chief' said A sort of change of arguement.

However the ISG says Its a tricky subject, I'll give you. My OH is an archaeologist and has to deal with badgers and the damage they do to the archaeology in the landscape. So I know a bit about badgers too. Oddly enough I might suggest that badgers ought to be 'controlled' in some way as their numbers have increased and they have no natural enemies. But that's another story.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I'm afraid i'm another one 'on the fence'. I come from and still live and work in a farming community and while i don't want to see badgers culled for no reason, i also don't want my beef and dairy products transported miles around the country or shipped in from overseas. At the moment i need to see more evidence on how it would work and which areas are most affected to be able to decide one way or the other.

I think it can be easy to forget that without farming our beautiful countryside wouldn't exist. cows, sheep, arable crops, fruit and veg all make a contribution to our landscape and to the wildife that lives there too. Farmers are essential to the future of our contryside so saying 'cows (or whatever farmed animal/crop) have less of a right to live there than badgers' makes no sense to me.

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There's vegetable growing in the family, but I must be adopted
Happy Gardening!

I think the point you're missing Beefy is that the RSPCA is referring to the biggest independent scientific investigation held to date. It took 8 years and cost 34 million pounds. Lots of the other evidence is biased, circumstantial or inferior.

So to paraphrase - you support a cull to save a dig but not for a safe supply of healthy food.
OK OK thats maybe a little to simple but as I said there are no easy choices.

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Et tū, quis es?

No, I don't believe I said a cull, nor was I suggesting one.

Not a dig. Badgers are a bit like cats in that they like easy digging, so disturbed ground is a fave, they often dig into barrows, tumuli and henges.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

8 years and £34 million is no guarantee that the results are accurate jeannine. Tescos have a bigger advertising budget - do you beleive everything they say?
I know that the island of Ireland (North and South ) has a lower % of bTB cases / head of cattle than the UK . The only real difference is that over here we cull badgers .
Please don't take this the wrong way but Ireland's population would be "closer to the land "( ie most peoples grandparents or greatgrandparents would have been from a farming related background) and so a different opinion to these issues will exist here.That may be right or wrong - I don't know but as an island that depends on the export of foods world wide we tend to look after the animals that provide us with a living.

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Et tū, quis es?

Tuberculosis in cattle will cost £2 billion over the next decade unless the Government takes the kind of determined action seen in the United States, the Tories warned yesterday. Owen Paterson, the party's agricultural spokesman, who has just returned from the US, said the government vet in charge of the problem was "utterly astounded" to hear about the "grotesque dimensions" of the epidemic in Britain.

Bovine tuberculosis affects 5,000 British farms a year, mostly in Gloucestershire and the South West, and the number of outbreaks is reportedly growing.

Some 20,000 cattle have to be slaughtered each year, which costs the Treasury £100 million in compensation.

Surely anyone with half a brain cell can see it is stupid to keep throwing good money after bad and it is pointless killing the cattle that are infected without removing the cause of the infection.

I have got to give you credit for sticking up for your roots Beefy but who is going to pay for a cull the tax payers the same people that pays for foot and mouth compensation and the mad cow desease compo and the cause was found to be imported untreated bone meal from India .
Not the big dairy companies or the slaughter house trade nor the milk hauliers or the cattle transport people .
so why should we have to subsidise the farming trade and all associated trades i do not think so but billy muggins the workers of our country jacob

And like cats they carry disease-toxo

you only need to read the first paragraph.

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Et tū, quis es?

Yeah - meat-eaters!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Jacob how hard would it be to set a date and every farmer cull the badgers on their land ? As for cost a box of shotgun catridges is around £3 or a bottle of gas at £15 .Put that against the millions thats being lost each year to bTB.I'd say most farmers would be glad to pay out of thier own pocket the only thing stopping them is the outcry from the press and the RS