As one Defra agency appears to be finally learning the painful lessons of IT rollouts gone wrong, another seems to have walked into the same trap. New Government urged to reveal TB plans
THE new Government has been urged to ‘nail its colours to the mast’ in terms of how it plans to tackle bovine TB (bTB).
Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats committed themselves to implementing a badger cull to control bTB prior the election.
The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) has now appealed to the new coalition government to state where it stands on this policy.
“We look forward to working with a new Defra team which we trust will move farming back up the political agenda,” said RABDF chairman, David Cotton.
“The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats made a very clear commitment prior to the election to introduce a comprehensive package of measures to control TB, including a science based targeted control in hotspot areas.
“The two parties now have the opportunity to nail their true colours to the mast and show they are prepared to influence and drive change to current TB policy within government.
“We urge that discussions are initiated immediately in order to prevent any further spread of this insidious disease and stem the massive tax payer spend on needless culling of reactors which last year cost tax payers £90m for 40,000 head.”.
He also called for an overhaul of the previous government’s Responsibility and Cost Sharing proposals.
“While we have already supported the principles of responsibility and cost sharing and continue to believe that they can have the potential to deliver improved animal health within the national livestock population, we would however urge government to ‘slow down’ the policy decision making on the proposed Animal Health Bill,” he said.
He said the industry wanted to see detailed evidence of how the proposed Animal Health Organisation (AHO) could operate ‘without impacting on the industry’s wallet any further than through implementing bio-security and taking other proactive measures that already take place’.
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Readers' comments (35)
Gavin Wheeler | 17 May 2010 3:34 pm
Tricky to implement a "science based" cull when the scientists are all saying that a cull is not worthwhile.
What's wrong with the badger vaccine we now have? It will be cheaper to deploy than a cull, and unlike the cull has not been rejected by the scientific community as unlikely to work.
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Brockwatcher | 17 May 2010 4:53 pm
Spot on Gavin. We now have an Agriculture Minister committed to bringing in a bTB 'control' policy which in all probability will actually make matters worse, all at the taxpayer's expense at a time when waste in public spending is supposedly being cut?
And he is supported in this by the industry. Though maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise since it was the industry that made sure bTB was spread far and wide post-FMD by demanding that restocking should take place without pre-movement testing....
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eryl jones | 17 May 2010 5:20 pm
gavin, you sound like a jeremy clarkson type in denial about global warming. They say that 'most science' says it isnt happening when virtually every scientist who knows anything about it knows it is. Likewise, government science over the last 20 years all points to the badger as the primary catalyst in the spread of TB. They would love it to be otherwise as killing badgers is hardly a vote winner is it? so they have no axe to grind - unlike so-called scientists who say there is no connection. Selective culling of badgers has been proven beyond doubt in Ireland and will prove to work in the selected area in South Wales. By the way , the tory promise about a free vote on fox hunting has gone very quite hasnt it? No chance with this coalition.
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Brockwatcher | 17 May 2010 5:33 pm
Talk about denial Eryl - you've obviously made up your own science. If selective culling of badgers in Eire has been so successful, why is bovine TB still a huge problem there? And why is it that in contrast, bTB has been greatly reduced in Northern Ireland without any badger culling? Because badgers are not the primary catalyst in the spread of TB, far from it.
Incidentally, nothing will be proven by the forthcoming cull in Pembrokeshire. They are mixing a massacre of badgers with tightened up cattle control measures, so if bTB levels go down in that area no-one is ever going to know the cause. But then I guess that's what the Welsh Assembly wants - it wouldn't do for them to provide even more evidence of the futility of killing badgers, would it?
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Anonymous | 17 May 2010 6:06 pm
In response to Gavin's question- what's wrong with the badger vaccine? - it's simple. It's not half as much 'fun' as a full blown, legal rampaging bloodbath. You must understand that killing a defenseless animal is what some people love doing in their spare time. Isn't it great for them that their hobby is also their job.
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Cattle Owner | 17 May 2010 6:19 pm
The badgers we see are either dead or alive
Most of the dead ones have usually been run over – some 40,000 per annum.
UK badger population in 1997 = 350,000
Current UK badger population? minimum 500,000 – maximum 1,000,000 – probably 750,000.
I don’t know about you but when I see a badger I wonder whether it has TB?
Will infect its fellow sett members?
Will it infect cows?
Will infect alpacas?
Dogs? Cats? Other wild life?
By my reckoning some 250,000+ sick badgers now require culling!
All totally unnecessary if the pro-badger, anti-cull badger supporters had, in the first place, accepted that badgers and cattle pass TB to each other.
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Gavin Wheeler | 17 May 2010 7:11 pm
Eryl - I have in fact read both the articles in the scientific journals and the less formal opinions of the scientists in this field. There is overwhelming agreement that culling using the same method as the RBCT (as Elin Jones is doing) hasn't a hope of more than minute and short-lived advantages. Even Dr Robbie MacDonald who is advising WAG on this cull gave an interview in the FG back in September saying that "culling badgers will make bTB worse and that farmers need to start backing the vaccination programme"
Nor can you credibly claim that members of the ISG (who concluded that culling won't work) were soft-hearted animal huggers. They killed 11000 badgers in that study - if they are now against a cull, it is for reasons of hard science.
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Anonymous | 17 May 2010 7:39 pm
Cattle Owner has the same cavalier disregard for facts as the Tory MPs who claim that slaughtering badgers will somehow ensure we have healthy badgers in the future. A selective slaughter of diseased badgers (and most of them aren't diseased) is impossible. So mostly healthy badgers will die. Where is the mythical new generation of healthy badgers then going to appear from? As for his badger population figures: sheer make believe, prejudiced nonsense. The most reliable estimates put badger numbers at around 300,000. If he cares to read reliable research he'll also find that healthy badgers and infected badgers can and do live side by side. I expect he also believes another bit of farming fantasy, that the current "live" test can be relied on to find all the TB in a herd. It can't and it doesn't. Every new outbreak is blamed on the badger when most often the blame should be laid squarely on the unreliable live test and the fact that bTB often lies undetected in cattle for months on end. Not the facts you want to hear, of course, when you prefer fairy tales about wildlife.
M. Rees
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Cattle Owner | 17 May 2010 8:20 pm
What sadness! What drivel!
Scientifically we have learnt very little sine 1997
Even the Krebs Report – ie pre-RCBT – referred to perturbation
The RCBT went to plan – Labour’s plan! Probably the £1.25 million donation from PAL / IFAW had some influence – Labour truly kicked iit nto the long grass!
Who says so? Professor Bourne says so!
And the (now thankfully) gone Labour vegetarian DEFRA bosses deliberately also ignored the developments of PCR technology – stating that the PCR technology is specifically not to be used to test if individual badgers have bTB - having incidentally been offered the technology by the Americans to address the FMD debacle and refusing it!
Warwick University has field-tested PCR and can determine in very quick time (almost immediately) which setts have bTB – targeted 100%
Personally I believe gassing ‘sick’ setts to be the solution but no doubt the sick badgers will be trapped and shot
As to sick and healthy badgers living together – of course they do – do you think the level of infection leapt to (an ever-increasing) 30% overnight? Besides whether they can or cannot is irrelevant – it’s what effect sick badgers have on their local environment that’s important.
It’s a bloody shame but the fact is that bovine TB is endemic within UK badger population and represents a massive, dangerous and expensive disease reservoir.
What have you done to help sort the disease? – you haven’t even been big enough to accept reality – get off your backsides – get into the countryside and start saving the species you love so much!
Blogging will do sod all!
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Cattle Owner | 17 May 2010 9:15 pm
TB in Badger Population
78 – 9%
82 – 11%
84 – 14%
86 – 16%
90 – 19%
92 – 20%
94 – 23%
97 – 28%
There are no more stats of course since 1997 because Labour govt not interested in facts.
These prove sick and healthy badgers do live together ok - but sadly the disease is spread to others in the sett.
Hands up whose seen these stats before?
Badger enthusiasts will also be aware of the most famous badger expert - Dr Ernest Neal - if you read his book you will see an excellent understanding of bTB and a statement that reluctantly he has to accept reality and that the culling of badgers was necessary to control the disease - the book has a forward by David Attenborough in which he supports everything Dr EN says - of course tosser Attenborough has changed his mind now - old age I guess!
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