There is a well known saying, 'no pain, no gain' and that will be ringing true in the minds of Milk Link’s 1,600 producers, who are on the brink of reaping just reward for 12 years of loyalty and investment.Brian May to receive animal welfare award
QUEEN guitarist Brian May, a leading figure in the fight to prevent badger culling in England and Wales, has won a special award in recognition of his campaigning on behalf of animals.
Dr May will be presented with the award from the International Fund for Animal Welfare at the Animal Action Awards ceremony at the House of Lords on Tuesday (October 18).
The rock star launched his ‘Save Me’ campaign, named after a Queen song, to ‘promote decent treatment for animals with the belief that every creature deserves a decent life and a decent death’.
As well as opposing badger culls proposed in England and Wales, the campaign urges politicians to retain the Hunting Act.
He has been a vocal supporter of many animal welfare campaigns for a number of years. In 2006 he was involved in a successful campaign against the culling of hedgehogs in Uist, Scotland and has also campaigned for the banning of snares and pushed for greater protection for UK seals.
Dr May set up a ‘soft release site’ in Surrey nine months ago so rehabilitated foxes, badgers, owls and other wildlife can be returned to the wild.
Dr May said he was ‘touched’ to be honoured by IFAW. “Fighting for the welfare of our wild animals is not a task that any of us want to have to do. We do it because these magnificent animals live, breathe, see, hear, and feel pleasure and pain like we do, but they do not speak our language, so in the world of humans, they have no voice,” he said.
“They have no way to speak out against the abuse being perpetrated against them.”
Dr May has become a controversial in farming circles because of his comments about badgers and bovine TB.
In a recent interview with Farmers Guardian, he claimed it had ‘never been proved that a badger has caused a real-life breakdown’ and that it was ‘ridiculous’ to suggest culling badgers could reduce the incidence of bTB in badgers or cattle. He claimed badgers were ‘innocent’ victims as they were ‘infected because of our farming practices’.
“The fact we are even debating wiping out a whole species that had a home in these islands before we did, on the grounds of science or economics, is to me a sign that we as a race, or as a country, are beyond hope,” he said.
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Readers' comments (25)
Anonymous | 18 October 2010 4:00 pm
I do not hold Dr May's beliefs against him as in a way there is some merit in them. However I find the way he promotes his beliefs to be deplorable as he is achieving this through reinforcing myths. For example in his Guardian News article titled "Kill the cull, not the badgers" dated 12 July 2010 he says the following
"The modern, intensive farming of cows, with hundreds (and soon thousands) bred and corralled in a small area, fed the same feed, attracts parasites and diseases. They have to be pumped with antibiotics and hormones to keep the diseases in check. This is why bovine TB became a problem in the UK."
Organic farming is a less intensive way of farming and reduces stress to farmed livestock through a variety of management techniques. In view of this if antibiotics and intensive farming practices explains why bovine TB has become a problem, you would expect this to be apparent when the incidence in organic herds is compared with that in conventional herds.
In fact in the Irish Republic on 31 December 2009 there were 972 organic herds recorded on DAFF records of which 45 were disclosed as reactors. This is 4.6%. The number of herds in the country at this time were 117,287 of which 3,222 were reactor herds. This is 2.7%. Also DARDNI the agicutural ministry in Northern Ireland stated that an observational, retrospective study, which focused on the prevalence of TB on 48 NI organic livestock farms in 2007 and 2008, found no significant difference with that in non-organic herds within their 3 km zones and with the NI prevalence rates.
I have nothing against campaigners expressing their views but what irritates me is that they think that it is OK to influence people by making statements which they have not bothered to verify.
Further details and sources of the data referred to above are given in
http://www.clearstats.co.uk/organicfarming.php
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the peasant | 18 October 2010 6:12 pm
That Dr May is a passionate advocate for wildlife is beyond doubt. What is in doubt is his understanding of the problem. Take the quote above "we are even debating wiping out a whole species". Is he a hero or a victim of misinformation and myopia?
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Sam Donnelly | 18 October 2010 9:23 pm
The government did a trial cull . It was proposed by the Tories and taken up by Labour. the cull killed 11,000 badgers. All the data collected showed quiet clearly that it did not reduce bovine Th. The government now proposed to cull on an assumption that the vaccine can help the purturbation . This has not been proven. The only thing we know for sure is that TB will spread out from the infected areas and increase. You cannot gamble with bTB. A ustained vaccine program will be the only way to reuce TB . In oter countries where they have culled it has returned. Deer and voles carry bTB , are we going to kill them too. One in seven badgers tested in the infected hot spots during the trial tested positive for TB.
Lets hope Dr Mays publicity will encourage farmers to read the reports , the government reports, the facts and they too will draw their own conclusion, the cull is not the answer.
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Anonymous | 18 October 2010 9:50 pm
Perhaps the farmers could explain to me why Scotland is recognised as bovine TB free without killing one badger.
Perhaps we should recognise also that Scotland values it's wildlife and earns £65m through wildlife tourism and supports over 2700 full time jobs.
If I am called a twat (or similar - see comment above) - for the points I make I would consider the term derogatory and offensive and I hope removed.
Derek
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geoff | 18 October 2010 10:04 pm
The fact that Scotland is free of TB suggests that scottish badgers are free of TB so why would they need to cull badgers? Your point does prove however that TB can be controlled as long as the wildlife are clear of TB. You have actually put forward a good case for a cull in hot spots...
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Anonymous | 18 October 2010 10:05 pm
The above posts fails to mention that the badger population is unevenly spread across the country: about 25% of badgers occur in southwest England, but only 10% in Scotland. These figures are provided by the Mammal Society.
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Anonymous | 18 October 2010 10:29 pm
The main body of science cited by anti cull campaigners is the 10 year study managed by the ISG and reported to ministers in 2006. However experts frequently report this study to be flawed. In affect these campaigners are likely to be advocating keeping badger numbers high at the expense of reducing this countries ability to produce food.
The following comments were made by a higher scietific officer who I understand was responsible for staff during the RBCT. These comments were made in 2006.
1. Badger removal operations worked well when the land being culled was made fully available, not just the area dictated to us by vets.
2. Where badgers were totally removed from a farm, that farm, after it had its infected cattle culled, often stayed clear of TB for up to 10 years.
3. We stayed on farms for up to three months to ensure that ALL badgers were
caught¿unlike the Krebs eight days per year trapping regime.
4. You do not need large scale culling for it to be effective if the culling effort is
robust from the start.
He ended his comments by saying
"how much weight do you give to the latest ISG report, detailing their "robust" findings to the Minister? If it were down to me and staff, very little."
These comments can be read in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Publication at http://www.clearstats.co.uk/docs/RBCT_problems.pdf.
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Anonymous | 18 October 2010 10:44 pm
New Zealands TB problem was as big as ours 10 years ago and in March this year the number of TB infected herds in New Zealand fell below 100. In 2009 in England the number of infected herds exceeded 6000.
This is what two senior New Zealand Animal Health Board (AHB) executives advised when they visited Wales in August this year. Dr Paul Livingstone the AHB Technical Manager and AHB Chairman John Dalziell were invited to speak at the Royal Welsh Show.
They described New Zealand's world-leading TB control tactics to Welsh farmers and vets and identified differences between the two nations'programmes. They told farmers that targeted wildlife control must play a greater role in the drive to eradicate the disease from Wales.
"The Welsh TB epidemic can only be beaten if the disease is tackled in wildlife as well as cattle," Dr Livingstone said. "In NewZealand, possums are the main wildlife carrier and transmitter of TB. We have been able to successfully manage the disease here through targeted, effective pest control. "Badgers appear to be the main carrier of the disease in Wales and, based on New Zealand's experience with infected wildlife, are likely to be the primary source of infection for most cattle herds.
More details can be read at
http://www.clearstats.co.uk/docs/New_Zealands_top_TB_experts_back_from_Wales.pdf
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bernard thomas | 18 October 2010 10:53 pm
Scotland....TB gone with no cull...Ireland...cull and plenty of TB....come on guys wise up....look after the cattle better!! Many more cattle die from other diseases other than TB...sort that out first!!! Mind your language too....
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Anonymous | 18 October 2010 11:00 pm
In 2006 the European Comission issued a guidance report which states alternatives to vaccination should be implemented without any delay and the role of infected wildlife addressed.
The following is an extract from a report titled Eradication of Bovine Tuberculosis in the EU.
" An active approach to the removal of TB-infected wildlife and the urgent development of alternative means of preventing transmission of TB from this source to cattle is proposed. It has now been reliably demonstrated that the persistence of an infected wildlife reservoir that enters into contact with cattle is a major obstacle to the eradication of TB. This obstacle should be addressed in tandem with the measures implemented in relation to the cattle population.
While future prospects for the development of suitable TB vaccines for use in wildlife are promising, considerable obstacles remain which make it difficult to foresee the use of such vaccination on its own as the most suitable tool to use to address the persistence of the variety of infected wildlife reservoirs worldwide in the near future. In the meantime, therefore, alternatives to vaccination, in order to address the role of infected wildlife in the persistence of TB should be implemented without any delay so as to allow the progress of the eradication programmes.
Removal of wildlife, either proactively or reactively following outbreaks, has proven to be an effective ancillary, and in certain situations necessary, measure to control and eradicate TB. "
It then goes on to say the following.
"The elimination or reduction of the risk posed by an infected wildlife reservoir enables the other measures contained in the programme to yield the expected results, whereas the persistence of TB in these wildlife populations impedes the effective elimination of the disease."
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