TB is a nasty disease; it causes coughing blood, overheating of the body, chronic fatigue and severe weight loss. The bacterium that causes tuberculosis is one that duplicates slowly compared to other bacterial diseases organisms, which means that the disease is one that kills slowly and painfully over a long period.
As someone who is very fond of badgers I would not wish any Brock to suffer such a long and painful death, that is why I do not understand the opposition by some who claim to be supporters of badgers to the Assembly Government's policy of culling badgers and cattle suffering from the infection.
The cull will not only ensure that the national cattle herd is free from this awful disease, but will also ensure that the national badger set is free from it too!
Opposing the cull is not going to save the herd or the set, it will just lead to cattle and badgers dying a long and painful death from a horrible disease, and potentially spreading the disease amongst the human population.
The opposition to efforts to remove the infection from the heard and the set by culling badgers and infected cows is beyond my grasp, and I fail to understand how such resistance can be promoted as support for animal welfare!
If you gnuinely wanted Badgers to be free from TB you would advocate vaccination. The only way that culling will achieve this is to make them extinct. They are not going to just kill the badgers who have TB you know, they are going to kill them all regardless. What about all the other animals who are susceptible to bTB and who pass it on across species? This cull has been shown scientifically not to work as it only reduces TB in one area temporarily and spreads it to other areas. That is why Ireland is abandoning the policy.
ReplyDeleteVaccination that has the ability to cure badgers carrying the TB strand in their blood are yet to be succefully developed.
ReplyDeleteThe cull itself hasn't been put foreward in an effort to bring the badger population to extinction, merely in an effort to rid the disease in the hotspot areas of Wales, such as Gogledd Penfro, where an extremely high percentage of badgers carry (and suffer) from TB.
One has to remember that it is also a pilot, which if it will not work then it won't carry on.
I talked with a vet in Aberteifi a few weeks ago and he told me when a badger get's TB his internal organs all begin to fail one by one, starting with the liver which then disenables the badger to break down food and enzymes. It is the a sort of cruel race which will kill the badger first - internal organ failure or starving to death from the innability to digest food.
I'm agreeing with Alwyn on this one.
An Aber Resident
Peter Black doesn't seem to understand the concept of a 'pilot area'.
ReplyDeleteRubbish alwyn, bovine tB originates in farm slurry (evidence under microscope), why some areas where their is no farm slurry is their no incidence of tB in badger? Answer cus their is no cows or slurry pit
ReplyDeleteIf you consider the cow (sheep as well) as domesticated and under man Bovine tB is a man made disease , it is not a work of nature as areas where their is no cows have no incidence of badger tB
Oh dear the nutty veggie burger response. Kill all cows and sheep and the problem for badgers goes away!
ReplyDeleteNo it doesn't! Whatever the cause of bTB, it exists and even if one followed your animal loving solution of culling all sheep and cattle it would still exist in the badger set! Without a cull in the areas most infected with badger TB it will spread from set to set and THAT will lead to the extinction of badgers in Wales.
Right on Alwyn.
ReplyDeletePeople that oppose this cull are misguided. A viable vaccination is simply not available at present. When it is, there will be no more need for culls. Until such a time, the Government needs to do its duty to farmers by removing animals in selected target areas.
The way Elin Jones has gone about this cull has been admirable. She has taken no pleasure in enforcing this strict policy. It has to be strict because the amount of compensation is simply massive.
Not to conflate the species involved here, but in suburban America they have the same do-gooder outrage about reducing the deer population. And it's not done out of some need to kill off vast numbers of animals--it's done to reduce traffic accidents. It's done out of a humane consideration for the animals.
ReplyDeleteIf a badger has begun to lose its faculties, you can be rest assured that it will stagger into a roadway and go under the tires of a well-meaning citizen, who might swerve and hit a tree or, God forbid, a pensioner out for a stroll.
How quickly the tune will change, am I right?
Norman Rogers is being completely unrealistic, what is the odds of someone swerving to avoid killing a badger and killing a Pensioner instead?
ReplyDeleteMost Badgers only roam over their territory which is only 500 meters from their sett, ok some territories cross roads but most do not so the risk to Pensioners is very small indeed.
The majority of Badgers that end up under the tyres of vehicles are mainly young male adults that are chased out of their setts by their parents in sping/summer when the new cubs are around and the parents are being protective towards them.