NFU11: Badger cull decision on hold - Paice

Readers' comments (33)

• Charles Henry | 16 February 2011 3:02 pm

  You are as bad as the incompetent Labour Party Mr Paice. . The announcement of licensing people to shoot badgers was just crass stupidity and bound to cause outrage. . The ban on gassing setts should have been revoked as an emergency measure. And a controlled cull and closing of setts near affected herds should have begun long ago.

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• Red Diesel | 16 February 2011 6:51 pm

  Gassing is (or is not) an option.
  
  Peter Kendall said it was the NFU's "preferred" option and he has also said that it is Jim Paice's preferred option. But "more work has to be done" on it.
  
  However, when I got a written Parliamentary Question asked about gassing, Paice said (more or less) it was not something presently being considered.
  
  Lord Zukerman in 1980 (?) found that gassing was inhumane.
  
  If it is bought back, Kendall has said he would be worried that a TV program such as Springwatch might hide a camera in a sett, and if a cub was shown to be in distress and not quickly killed, all hell would let loose.

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• Charles Henry | 16 February 2011 7:45 pm

  Lord Zukerman in 1980. . Pure unproven scaremongering, fallacious reasoning and sophistry. In any case It would be perfectly possible to use a charge to cause unconsciousness before gassing to remove any doubt. . When will these people, politicians and others understand the severity and potential for calamity with what we are dealing with? . And when will the BVA start asserting themselves and show some leadership. Just how much farmers' livestock and other animals are they all prepared to become infected and slaughtered before they act.

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• Red Diesel | 16 February 2011 9:52 pm

  """The third is how various security issues are addressed, including the threat of activists protesting against the cull and the safety issues regarding farmers and contractors shooting badgers in the wild, particularly at night."""
  
  This won't only be a problem with the Animal Rights types. There is going to be real clashes on the boundaries between land when the person on one side of a fence wants to keep the badgers and the person on the other side of the fence wants to shoot them. And the badgers are going back and fro between them. That's why gassing is the best answer.
  
  'Cause on one side of the fence there will be a man with a gun and on the other side a very angry landowner who may want to try to take his gun away.
  

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• mechanical mike | 17 February 2011 11:12 am

  If you have an open carry FAC you can lamp & shoot rabbits & foxes so whats the problem with shooting badgers? The problem occurs when its carcase disposal time bunnies you eat... foxes discreetly tuck away for other carrion eaters ... badgers on the other hand may be infected so how do you handle them without yourself becoming infected .... so it seems gassing is the best answer..... get of your backside Mr Paice show some gumption & get this cull started... earn your keep

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• Keith | 17 February 2011 11:41 am

  Perhaps we could try putting Mr Henry in a confined space and using a charge to stun him before we attempt to gas him using tractor exhaust fumes and see how humane this appears. Grow up you lot and accept ypur farming practices are the cause of this issue and put your house in order instead of blaming politicians, "bunny huggers" and anyone else except the farming community for your problems.

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• Charles Henry | 17 February 2011 3:12 pm

  @Keith
  
  With any luck Keith, you'll be one of the first to contract the new-wave of TB when the xxxx finally hits the fan. . I shall be long dead by then of course. . Have you ever seen anyone with pulmonary TB that wouldn't respond to Isoniazid or Rifampicin in the final stages? . . No I thought not. .
  
  Tractor exhaust fumes would not be as effective as Cyanide. . Cyanides are rapidly absorbed and are among the most rapidly acting of mammalian poisons (Egekeze & Oehme, 1980) and can be administered via fumigation or in poisoned bait. Cyanide is a centrally acting chemical that inhibits cytochrome oxidase, an essential link in the chain of mitochondrial respiration, thereby preventing the cellular use of oxygen and causing cytotoxic anoxia. Gross symptoms include suppression of central nervous system (CNS) activity, rapidly leading to respiratory suppression, cardiac arrest, coma and death (Gregory et al., 1998).

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• vaccinate cattle | 17 February 2011 7:08 pm

  Vaccination of cattle is effective, EU rules prohibit its use. Badger vaccines are also available.
  Purposely killing badgers sounds unacceptable.
  

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• Rethink Bovine TB | 17 February 2011 8:16 pm

  Very few (45 out of 9,040 in 2009) of the human cases of TB in the UK are caused by the bacterium responsible for Bovine TB in cattle Mycobacterium Bovis. The chances of humans catching Bovine TB in the UK from cattle are vanishingly small because of pasteurization of milk and cooking of meat.
  Bovine TB itself is of limited interest as an animal welfare problem as even infected cattle seldom show significant symptoms and have little chance to develop the disease during their short economic lives. The principal animal welfare implication is premature slaughter under the “test and cull” policy not the effects of the disease itself. The effect of the policy is worse than the disease.
  The reasons for the current policy, human health, trade, animal welfare and the “interests of wider society” do not stand examination.
  The policy relies on a diagnostic test that Defra describe as “imperfect” and on examination appears fatally flawed.
  The policy is causing widespread losses and distress to farmers and is a burden on the taxpayer. After 60 years of cattle testing and culling several decades more slaughter separates us from an uncertain chance of TB free status. The taxpayer’s money (over £100 million per annum) could be better spent on human health.
  Cattle vaccination will be licensed in 2012. Only the EU prevents us from using it to replace the current policy or leaving Bovine TB control in the discretion of individual farms.
  
  

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

• the peasant | 17 February 2011 9:02 pm

  @ Rethink Bovine TB | 17 February 2011 8:16 pm. "After 60 years of cattle testing and culling" For the first decade testing was not compulsory, nor was the slaughter of reactors, and yet the incidence of Tb in cattle fell, for the next decade testing and slaughter of reactors was compulsory and the incidence of TB fell further and faster. For the next decade there were still improvements to the point where the country was almost free of the disease. Thereafter we have suffered 3 decades of gradually increasing numbers of reactors to the TB test. Drawn as a graph it would appear as a steep slope down for 2 decades, followed by a trough of about a decade before a steady upward trend follows for the last 3 decades. 2 decades of cattle testing and culling came close to winning us TB free status. 4 decades of letting the disease run riot in wildlife and doing nothing about it has brought us to the present state. Tackle the reservoir of infection in wildlife effectively and there is every chance that TB free status can be attained in little more than a decade.

  Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment