I’m sad to read that the attempts to stop the proposed cull of badgers in Pembrokeshire has failed.
Ironically, they plan to vaccinate the badgers in England, starting next year with injectable vaccination, and following in 2014 with bait.
I know how tragic it is when a farmer loses animals to bTB – but they don’t keel over from the lurgy itself.. no.. the man from DEFRA buys them off the farmer. I have trouble believing they go to so much trouble to protect us humans, when in fact the meat will often end up in the food chain – only severely ill animals are removed completely.. if they are only showing lesser signs of the diseases, they are still eaten. And it was only as recently as 2006 that milk from infected cows was not put in the tankers with the rest of the milk. Now, it is mixed with slurry and spread on the fields…
There is so much controversy about this subject. Each time there is a cull, such as there was in Ireland, the statistics can be read different ways, and are, and then the culls and trials are repeated.
I think vaccination of the badgers is the only way forward – I cannot see how culling will work unless all the badgers are culled. Some research indicates that partial culling only encourages the badgers to move around – moving into empty territory etc.
In the UK we have lost so many of our native animals, and others are under threat. I don’t want to lose badgers too. I think it is great that we have mammals such as foxes and badgers living wild here. And yes, we might suffer losses to our poultry etc, but I still want them to stay.
TB is far bigger than badgers, and personally I think that vaccination is the only sensible way forward but for cattle not badgers, rats and deer also carry TB, although I don’t think these are so easily passed on (???), so only vaccinating badgers wouldn’t work and they are a wild animal so surely it is easier to vaccinate cattle who already have annual tests in most parts of the UK and pre-movement tests too, than to catch all those wild animals to vaccinate them. It would also be less stressful for an animal that it use to coming into contact with humans then for one that is not