Scotsman on badger poison charge

Readers' comments (11)

• Anonymous | 27 July 2010 1:23 pm

  The motive is unlikely to have been related to bovine TB as Scotland has been declared free of this disease due to good cattle management.

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• Urbal Leprechaun | 27 July 2010 1:29 pm

  Hang on there....
  
  Isn't Scotland internationally recognised as a bTB free area?
  
  Well, OK. Defra's bTB stats show there was one confirmed case of bTB in cattle in Dumfrieshire last year.

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• Urban Leprechaun | 27 July 2010 1:39 pm

  It's probably to protect bumblebees.
  
  Go look at:
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8840000/8840922.stm

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• Friend Of Nature | 27 July 2010 4:23 pm

  Urban Lephrechaun, in that report the man says "One can only assume that the badgers have dug all the nests out and destroyed them". Surely he should realise that you should NEVER assume anything. Find facts.
  
  As for the poison case, sadly there's far too much of this sort of thing happening in Scotland these days as has been proved with the killing of countless birds of prey and it should be stopped immediately.

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• Urban Leprechaun | 27 July 2010 10:06 pm

  @ Friend of Nature
  
  Rumour here in the Westcountry has it the bloke in the video is a pro-cull "plant".
  
  The Bumblebee Preservation Society (yes, there is such!) do not blame badgers.

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• Anonymous | 28 July 2010 9:07 am

  Urban Leprechaun is a left wing activist who has no knowledge of Mycobacterium bovis or how it incubates and reproduces or how difficult it is to kill. As with all activists he is quite happy for badgers to breed exponentially, suffer miserable deaths and does not care how many other mammals suffer in the process. . Badgers WILL have to be culled to protect all mammals including the human population.
  
  Cow killers would not be an incorrect description.

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• Anonymous | 28 July 2010 7:51 pm

  I always thought badgers were protected like swans , I see no reason in culling them as I dont think that they cause TB in cattle, and what have humans got to do with it, and has for cow killers we should take a long look at the human race for that as well.

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• BK | 1 August 2010 11:21 am

  Fascinated to know how you know who and what Urban Leprechaun is 'anonymous'. However all it tells me is that you are probably a farmer with no interest whatsoever in nature, only in making money from land. The two are not compatible. I know this because I am an ecologist, not an activist. And farms are just seas of monoculture where anything that gets in the way is shot or removed. You don't protect our natural heritage, and I object to my taxes being spent on your subsidies. And no I don't want your meat or your dairy either. Not any more. I live in hope that there will be enough farmers moving towards a more organic and sustainable system in the next few years to keep our wildlife at least partially intact, given we are losing just about everything at an alarming rate. And no, that's not the badger eating the birds and the bumblebees, sorry. The facts are that it's our own agricultural practices.

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• Anonymous | 2 August 2010 9:46 am

  Has anyone even considered the hazard presented by someone of thes mans mindset possessing cyanide gas?

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• Anonymous | 3 August 2010 8:49 am

  I am extremely offended by BK, the 'ecologist'. We are one of the few remaining family farms in a small area between woods etc, and we keep cows for milk, which we have been producing at a loss or very small profit for the last decade. We keep farming because we really want to and will do so for as long as possible despite the hardship and hard work, because we know people need food and we want them to have safe food from reliable sources. We don't shoot and remove everything that isn't a cow, and we have wonderful diversity of flora and fauna. Yet despite this we are criticised and condemned for daring to farm our own land, and when badgers come into our buildings to die with bTB, and our animals have to be slaughtered after contracting the disease, we are supposed to pay up, uncomplainingly, and put up with it. If something isn't done about it soon, we won't have any farms to speak of, and definitely no organic and sustainable ones! (Organic farms and cows are not immune to bTB you know!)

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