Badgers at risk

[beefy]

I think the point you're missing Beefy is that the RSPCA is referring to the biggest independent scientific investigation held to date. It took 8 years and cost 34 million pounds. Lots of the other evidence is biased, circumstantial or inferior.

8 years and £34 million is no guarantee that the results are accurate jeannine. Tescos have a bigger advertising budget - do you beleive everything they say?
I know that the island of Ireland (North and South ) has a lower % of bTB cases / head of cattle than the UK . The only real difference is that over here we cull badgers .
Please don't take this the wrong way but Ireland's population would be "closer to the land "( ie most peoples grandparents or greatgrandparents would have been from a farming related background) and so a different opinion to these issues will exist here.That may be right or wrong - I don't know but as an island that depends on the export of foods world wide we tend to look after the animals that provide us with a living.

[PAULW]

Tuberculosis in cattle will cost £2 billion over the next decade unless the Government takes the kind of determined action seen in the United States, the Tories warned yesterday. Owen Paterson, the party's agricultural spokesman, who has just returned from the US, said the government vet in charge of the problem was "utterly astounded" to hear about the "grotesque dimensions" of the epidemic in Britain.

Bovine tuberculosis affects 5,000 British farms a year, mostly in Gloucestershire and the South West, and the number of outbreaks is reportedly growing.

Some 20,000 cattle have to be slaughtered each year, which costs the Treasury £100 million in compensation.

Surely anyone with half a brain cell can see it is stupid to keep throwing good money after bad and it is pointless killing the cattle that are infected without removing the cause of the infection.

[jacob marley]

I have got to give you credit for sticking up for your roots Beefy but who is going to pay for a cull the tax payers the same people that pays for foot and mouth compensation and the mad cow desease compo and the cause was found to be imported untreated bone meal from India .
Not the big dairy companies or the slaughter house trade nor the milk hauliers or the cattle transport people .
so why should we have to subsidise the farming trade and all associated trades i do not think so but billy muggins the workers of our country jacob

[beefy]

Badgers are a bit like cats in that they like easy digging

And like cats they carry disease-toxo

you only need to read the first paragraph.

[smallblueplanet]

....Surely anyone with half a brain cell can see it is stupid to keep throwing good money after bad and it is pointless killing the cattle that are infected without removing the cause of the infection.

Yeah - meat-eaters!

[beefy]

I have got to give you credit for sticking up for your roots Beefy but who is going to pay for a cull the tax payers the same people that pays for foot and mouth compensation and the mad cow desease compo and the cause was found to be imported untreated bone meal from India .
Not the big dairy companies or the slaughter house trade nor the milk hauliers or the cattle transport people .
so why should we have to subsidise the farming trade and all associated trades i do not think so but billy muggins the workers of our country jacob

Jacob how hard would it be to set a date and every farmer cull the badgers on their land ? As for cost a box of shotgun catridges is around £3 or a bottle of gas at £15 .Put that against the millions thats being lost each year to bTB.I'd say most farmers would be glad to pay out of thier own pocket the only thing stopping them is the outcry from the press and the RSPCAwho see the fluffy badger running round.

[Paul Wagland]

Because these animals provide food for a large percentage of the population. If you don't want to have to import all the meat and associated products that the dairy and beef industries produce from overseas you have to make choices.

I choose to opt-out of the beef industry, it's easy! And besides, that land would produce food for many more people if you grew arable crops on it.

I think it can be easy to forget that without farming our beautiful countryside wouldn't exist.

I think we could do without the factory farms though. They're hardly a valuable contributor to our rich and varied landscape are they?

Yeah - meat-eaters!

Many a true word spoken in jest.

[jacob marley]

Jacob how hard would it be to set a date and every farmer cull the badgers on their land ? As for cost a box of shotgun catridges is around £3 or a bottle of gas at £15 .Put that against the millions thats being lost each year to bTB.I'd say most farmers would be glad to pay out of thier own pocket the only thing stopping them is the outcry from the press and the RSPCAwho see the fluffy badger running round.

They could not do it that way because the defra mob would have to set up a committe and a sub committe to work out how to do it and make the maximum amout of cash in to there bank accounts jacob

[Paul Wagland]

A cull would have to be extensively planned, then properly staffed and supervised to ensure it was done safely and humanely, probably with DEFRA vets present at each site (thousands across the country). The bodies would have to be removed and incinerated. Cattle would have to be confined during the whole procedure etc etc.

If a simple cull is so cheap and easy, why have BSE, foot and mouth and bird flu cost so many billions?

[beefy]

I choose to opt-out of the beef industry, it's easy! And besides, that land would produce food for many more people if you grew arable crops on it.

Thats your choice Paul .I hope you can respect my choice to opt in and eat meat. And I hope you have a plan for the large areas that are not suitable for arable production.Thats why areas like linconshire are so heavily into cereals- the land and climate suits it . You don't see many cereals north of Inverness and theres a good reason why - the weather and ground don't suit the production of cereals

I think we could do without the factory farms though. They're hardly a valuable contributor to our rich and varied landscape are they?

I wonder how much of "our rich and varied landscape" would be there if the farmers did not look after it?

[beefy]

A cull would have to be extensively planned, then properly staffed and supervised to ensure it was done safely and humanely, probably with DEFRA vets present at each site (thousands across the country). The bodies would have to be removed and incinerated. Cattle would have to be confined during the whole procedure etc etc.

If a simple cull is so cheap and easy, why have BSE, foot and mouth and bird flu cost so many billions?

Because the very bodies you have mentioned above have Fu--ed the whole thing up

[Paul Wagland]

Thats your choice Paul .I hope you can respect my choice to opt in and eat meat.

I can respect your decision to eat meat, not unconditionally, but that's a different matter.

What I don't respect is the attitude that it's ok to destroy our native wildlife to preserve intensive farming practices. It is NOT badgers that cause the spread of TB, it is the fact that too many cattle are housed, fed and transported in too little space. This is what the government report has concluded.

[Paul Wagland]

Because the very bodies you have mentioned above have Fu--ed the whole thing up

Actually it's public demand for cheap meat that has done that. And also the farmers who are prepared to meet that demand.

[PAULW]

[QUOTE=Paul Wagland;184620]A cull would have to be extensively planned, then properly staffed and supervised to ensure it was done safely and humanely, probably with DEFRA vets present at each site

It is wonderous to behold the ignorance of the masses, Waggy how do you supose the last cull was carried out ?
Let me explain the cull was carried out by individuals with cage traps who went around an area trapping and shooting the badgers in the traps then taking a blood sample to be sent to the lab, no supervisors no vets present, then again how many vet would be able to shoot an animal, the problem was the bunnyhuggers found out where the traps were set and smashed the traps

[beefy]

BSE - only became a problem when the govt interfered and lowered the temperature that meat and bone meal had to be heated to to sterilise it.

Foot and Mouth - Govt knew it was there and instead of acting spent 6 months stockpiling railway sleepers for the pires that the cattle were burnt on.Told hauliers to buy trailers for transporting fallen animals but would not say why.