Badger Cull

[Rob McCow]

Cattle are dying from tuberculosis and apparently badgers are to blame. Or, as it turns out, they're to blame for 12-15% of cases.

From The Independent:

If pilot schemes are successful, it means that thousands – and potentially tens of thousands – of badgers will be culled in an operation which will last at least four years and which will be carried out at farmers' expense.

The long-awaited decision, which reverses the previous Labour government's policy, will be politically controversial and may even lead to problems of public order, with animal rights activists attempting to disrupt shoots.

The Government has hesitated, mindful of recent presentational disasters from Mrs Spelman's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) over proposals to sell off the public forests and to ban wild animals in circuses.

The decision has been taken in the face of opposition from critics ranging from Sir David Attenborough to Lord Krebs, the senior scientist who wrote the first report on the badger-TB link in 1997, and who said last week that a badger cull would be a mistake.

But it will be warmly welcomed by livestock farmers, who have been pressing for a cull with the disease continuing to spread despite the official biocontrol measures of cattle testing, slaughter and movement restriction. More than 25,000 TB-infected cattle had to be slaughtered last year.

There is broad scientific consensus that badgers do form a reservoir of tuberculosis and do spread it to cattle; the argument has been over whether a cull would be effective. A group of experts brought together by Defra agreed that a cull would reduce the incidence of the disease in cattle herds by between 12 and 16 per cent. However Lord Krebs said that a policy which left "85 per cent of the problem still here" did not seem to be an effective way of dealing with the disease.

The Government has been considering running two pilot schemes in Devon and Gloucestershire, the counties worst hit. There has been no proper testing of the method likely to be employed, the shooting of free-roaming badgers by trained marksmen.

"The decision to cull will go against all the scientific evidence, with an untried and untested method which is likely to cause immense suffering, as badgers are very hard to shoot," said David Williams, chairman of the Badger Trust. Another concern is that any survivors of a partly culled family of badgers will roam off, spreading TB and making the situation worse.

THE long debate over a cull

1997 Professor John Krebs, zoologist at Oxford University, completes a study on badgers and TB in cattle. He recommends a trial to see if culling badgers would curb the disease.

1998 Randomised badger culling trial is established.

2003 Culling is suspended when it is found that "perturbation" – survivors of partly culled badger families wandering off – is actually increasing cases.

2007 Final report of trials firmly rejects the idea of a cull.

2008 Government chief scientist Sir David King rejects report and says cull should go ahead. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn rejects idea of a cull.

2010 Farming minister Jim Paice says new Government proposes to allow cull.

David Attenborough said:

"You may think that culling is the answer and it sounds easy to start with but it can very well make things much worse," warned Attenborough. "Survivors will carry the disease into areas that have hitherto been unaffected. There's good scientific research available to show that culling badgers can make things worse and not better."

I'm not saying what side I'm on in this debate, (no honestly!) however here's a link to save the badger: http://www.savethebadger.com/ (oh wait I was lying.)

Badgers are generally considered to be a rare, perhaps endangered animal. Yet to look at the other side of the argument, what would be the consequences of the cull? Would it have a wider effect than just the death of a few thousand large mammals? Where do they fit into the food chain?

It looks like we're going to find out.

And are we merely a bunch of town-folk worried about a few cutesy-cutesy animals?

Personally I believe that tuberbulosis is spread more through modern intensive farming techniques, but that is purely a belief and I don't have any detailed evidence for it. Apart from the supposition that if you stick a bunch of animals in a room together without enough space and feed them the cheapest grain and mushed up bonemeal available, then they're far more likely to catch diseases.

[Andrew Curnow]

Assuming that article is factually correct, I'd say the comment "a policy which left "85 per cent of the problem still here" did not seem to be an effective way of dealing with the disease" is the most relevant. It just doesn't sound like it will be a worthwhile exercise anyway, almost regardless of whether there's any 'moral' objection.

I'm also no expert on farming, but based solely on my experience of what goes on round here "Apart from the supposition that if you stick a bunch of animals in a room together without enough space and feed them the cheapest grain and mushed up bonemeal available, then they're far more likely to catch diseases" really wouldn't apply to cattle. There are fields full of cows around here, and as far as I can see they're eating nice healthy grass!