I’m fed up with talking about the weather, but I can console myself with the fact we have grabbed every opportunity so far and progress is not too bad.Protesters call for end to 'stupid' badger cull
A RALLY has taken place outside the home of the Welsh Assembly in protest at the planned badger cull due to start in north Pembrokeshire later this year.
The event, organised by the umbrella group Save The Badger, attracted about 200 protestors outside the Senedd building in Cardiff Bay on Monday (March 8), according to reports.
A Save The Badger spokesman said: “It’s not just angry members of the public, or even the various animal conservation organisations like ours who disagree with the ethics of this policy, the majority of scientific research and evidence has stated for the record that culling badgers as a method of dealing with TB in cattle will not work.”
Save the Badger describes itself as an alliance of individual and groups ‘against culling, trapping, snaring, baiting, or any form of persecution, of badgers’. It claims to have collected 30,000 signatures from the public on a petition opposing the cull.
A number of organisations were represented in the protest, including the Badger Trust and Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (Viva!).
Justin Kerswell, of Viva!, said the decision to cull badgers in Wales was ‘based on greed, stupidity and ignorance of science’.
“It will be the shame of Wales - it will be the shame of the UK. More and more people in Wales are united against this but are being ignored by their own Government,” he told the BBC.
The Welsh Assembly gave the final go-ahead for badger cull in Wales in January, with an expected late April or early May start date.
The proposed cull area covers 288sq.km (111sq.m) of north Pembrokeshire and small parts of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.
Welsh Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones said at the time that bovine TB was ‘out of control and unsustainable’ and last year cost the taxpayer nearly £24 million in compensation alone.
“We know that cattle and badgers are the main sources of the disease and that, if we want to achieve our aim of eradicating bovine TB, we have to tackle the disease in both species,” she said.
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Readers' comments (11)
Anonymous | 9 March 2010 11:37 pm
I for one and now more and more people are becoming vegetarian. I have given up milk and dairy prouducts. At our protest meeting at the welsh assembly I met caring people who unlike farmers are the future. The way things are developing the only future for farmers is to grow vegetables. This decision to kill Badgers is the biggest mistake elin jones could have made. Animal farming is on its way out.
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Old Yokel | 10 March 2010 1:31 am
Caring people are the future? Pathetic. Most people in the UK could not give a toss about you or anyone else. I do grow veg, it goes well with the joint of beef. I am not one of the pasty faced idiots that live on rabbit food, it ain't natural, why do you think we have eyes in front of our heads unlike hunted animals that have them on the side (so that they can see what is behind them!!!) No, animal farming is not on it's way out unlike (I hope)
badgers, there are way too many of them.
Have you ever seen a badger? I mean a live one, not road kill, 'cos most people have not.
& I am not anonymous,
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Anonymous | 10 March 2010 10:35 am
Old Yoke get a grip if most people have not even seen a badger as you claim then obviously there are not too many of them ! With regards to the positioning of eyes ?? Is yours positioned singularly in the middle of your forehead by any chance ?
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Anonymous | 10 March 2010 11:40 am
The cattle movement and testing measures alone will control bTB. The badger cull is a total waste of money (it will cost millions of pounds) and will not make any significant difference at all. I cannot believe all this money is being wasted in this way.
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Sue Hetherington | 10 March 2010 11:52 am
Killing badgers will make little difference to eradicating BOVINE tb; it will just be a hugely expensive waste of money and a political public relations disaster. There will be nothing like photos of needlessly butchered badger cubs to make people think about who they vote in as their AMs at the forthcoming General Election! There are other options - England is trying vaccinating badgers instead of killing them and DEFRA should stop the movements of infected cattle. This latter is the real culprit in spreading the bacterium around, far more effective than badgers, who never wanted to catch it from cattle in the first place. The only people who want this cull are the NFU and some farmers - and not even all farmers agree with the cull.
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Anonymous | 10 March 2010 2:02 pm
Why is it that you can kill rats with a poison that makes them die slowly of internal haemorrhaging and no one bats an eyelid, and you can cause local extinction of deer in order to protect trees and people don't even notice, yet when it comes to badgers, the most common carnivore we have (if you think they're rare you're so wrong you shouldn't even be allowed to participate in the debate), and an animal that is wiping out other animals people go ballistic. If you want to campaign against something campaign to ban rat poison rather than choosing the soft, cuddly, iconic, stripy option. At least that would give you some kind of non-anthropomorphic leg to stand on.
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Anonymous | 10 March 2010 5:59 pm
Everyone chooses what they care about, so that's a pointless argument. As for carnivores, I'm afraid omnivore is the word you are looking for. And since their main prey is earthworms (fewer of those than there should be, sadly, due to farming methods that are far from ecologically sound), I'm not sure what 'wiping out other animals means exactly. Unless you are referring to Tb. In which case, you are mistaken, what is wiping out cattle, is the movement of cattle, with utterly inadequate and inaccurate testing. Badgers do not move very far. An animal that is wiping out other animals...? Humans. Consistently.
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poor dead badger | 10 March 2010 7:03 pm
statistics can say anything BTB will persist even if meles meles is driven to extinction - no doubt that is exactly what greedy farmers want - rats spread btb, according to defra 1.4 % that equals millions of carriers - that will never be controlled - wheras simple badger proof fences would be a simple alternative to slaughter of ourt most outstanding British mammal
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Stripy Badger | 10 March 2010 11:51 pm
Same old story from OLD YOKEL a typical farmer? Savage primitive ideas. The world will progress and people like him will be left behind as the world becomes more civilized. I really am quite concerned that people like that are still allowed to be in charge of animals. He is also wrong about caring people. I know many people who care deeply about their fellow human beings and also all wildlife. Good decent people that we need to make the world a better place. I am proud that I see Badgers every evening and I feed them from my fingers. I was brought up on a farm and I am not a towny. I am a vegetarian and I know it is the future.
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Sally Hall | 11 March 2010 7:59 pm
I suggest that anyone who has an interest in bTB should read the recently published ‘Public Health and bovine tuberculosis – what’s all the fuss about’ by Paul R Torgerson and David J Torgenson. It is a very well researched and referenced article, which concludes that bTB control in cattle is irrelevant as a public health policy and there is little evidence either for a positive cost benefit in terms of animal health of bTB control. It suggests that such evidence is required; otherwise there is little justification for the large sums of money spent on bTB control in the UK. It is time for a radical re-think on policy. We already have reports that conclude culling of badgers is not good value for money. Over the last decade or so badgers seem to have occupied a disproportionate amount of time and resources at the expense of a more sustainable, lasting solution for cattle. An unpopular cull, which is now proven to be a waste of tax payers’ money, as well as not being properly backed up by reliable scientific evidence, is bad publicity for farmers and may even have serious implications for tourism and food industries if an angry public decide on boycotts.
Despite a compulsory testing regime for some fifty years, we are told bTB is now endemic in many areas of the UK. This is based solely on the results of a skin test for cattle that has not really changed since it was originally developed and that many now believe may not be as reliable as is claimed. How accurate and up to date is the scientific data behind the claims of its sensitivity and positive productive values? Less than 30% of cattle slaughtered under the existing skin test system are shown to have bTB. Whilst reasons are given for this, they are weak and open to challenge without substantive scientific evidence, which is not made available. It is interesting to note that despite the claims that the disease is now out of control, few people ever contract the disease - even farmers, testers, vets, abattoir workers etc who are in regular and close contact of supposedly infected animals - and many farming families drink their own milk raw, before it is pasteurized. It is generally accepted that nowadays bTB poses negligible risk to human health. The existing policy is all about maintaining TB free status and protecting exports (despite the fact that the cost of the bTB programme is apparently in excess of the value of live exports – only 1.4% of cattle are exported). It is concerned mainly with meeting targets and deadlines, not protecting human or animal health and welfare. Whilst the government ministers and bureaucrats are busy claiming how successful the TB Health Check Wales has been, the very significant costs for those adversely affected, have been largely ignored. It would probably not be tolerated in any other sector but most farmers are held to ransom because of fear of financial penalties. Are there now too many vested interest groups keen to see the existing system continue for as long as possible?
The human form of Tb has been controlled adequately for decades, so why, after so many years and millions of taxpayers’ money already spent, is there still no vaccination programme for bTB? As the two disease are so closely linked surely the efficacy of such a programme would be similar to the claims made for the existing, unreliable and very time consuming skin test system? Surely the best way forward is for a vaccination programme for cattle to start without further delay and for farmers and unions to be campaigning strongly for this and the necessary change in EU legislation to facilitate?
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