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Brian May and Team Badger step up war on 'crazy' cull
Trial badger culls are to go ahead within weeks, but wildlife groups are mobilising
THE IMMINENT launch of badger cull trials in the west of England has been dubbed "crazy" by a leading expert on the subject and brought wildlife campaigners out in force.
The trial badger culls are to go ahead in undisclosed areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset within weeks. The two trials are not being carried out to ascertain whether killing badgers can control bovine TB; instead they are testing the effectiveness of shooting as a way to cull badgers.
The trial culls will continue for six weeks. If the culls are found to be humane and badgers can be killed in sufficient numbers, the cull will continue for four years.
In this eventuality, further trials are likely to be started, with up to 10 licences issued per year. However, it is expected that the incidence of bovine TB will only fall by about 16 per cent in the trial areas over nine years.
While farmers are pleased that the culling trials are going ahead, wildlife groups and many scientists are baffled as to why the government is ignoring the advice of its own experts.
Thanks to a major study, the 'Krebs trial' in the 1990s, it is generally agreed that the culling of badgers is ineffective as a method of controlling bovine TB. In fact the study found that culling badgers can actually make bovine TB worse, because it encourages infected survivors to move around the countryside.
In 2007, the Independent Scientific Group concluded that "badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain" and that the disease could be contained by "cattle-based control measures alone".
Lord Krebs, the scientist who led the Krebs trial, told the BBC yesterday that the government should choose vaccination and control of cattle movements "rather than this crazy scheme that may deliver very small advantage, may deliver none. And it's very hard to see how DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) are going to collect the crucial data to assess whether it's worth going ahead with free shooting at all".
Speaking on Channel 4 News last night, rock star Brian May said the cull "cannot solve the problem" and warned that "a terrible, terrible tragedy is about to unfold". May is fronting a campaign against the cull called Team Badger, which is made up of a coalition of animal charities, including the RSPCA and the Born Free Foundation.
The bird protection charity RSPB says it opposes a cull and will never allow the practise on its land. The charity's conservation director Martin Harper
said: "The dairy industry has endured terrible times while trying to cope with this devastating disease. However, we have never been convinced that the best way to help farmers is to force them to foot the bill for a contentious cull that is only expected to reduce outbreaks by about 16 per cent."
Even supermarkets have felt moved to distance themselves from the massacre of badgers, with Waitrose, M&S and the Co-op telling the BBC they will not stock milk from farms that allow badger culls (although the identity of farmers involved in the trials is being kept secret).
But in The Daily Telegraph, Clive Aslet, of Country Life magazine, puts forward the view of a farmer he met who says badgers need to be culled for their own protection against a debilitating disease. "It may not be a point that activists find easy to accept," writes Aslet. "But, as with foxes, a love of badgers is not incompatible with killing them. What is undeniably bad for an individual badger may be good for the health of the species."
And Anne McIntosh, a Conservative MP on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, told Newsnight: "We owe it to the farmers and to the rural economy of the areas most badly affected - and to the badgers themselves - to eliminate bovine TB, which we have singularly failed to do."
McIntosh is wary of going down the vaccination route. "What happens to the meat and milk from cattle who show signs of TB after being vaccinated?" She asks. "Will it be allowed to be exported?"
Meanwhile, badger lovers have taken to Twitter to drum up support for a government 'e-petition', which if it attracts 100,000 signatures will automatically trigger a debate on the cull in the House of Commons.
The 'hashtag' #replacelovewithbadgersongs was trending on the social media site today, encouraging users to replace the word 'love' in famous songs with the word 'badger'.
The stunt had the desired effect: the word 'badger' was soon trending. Between yesterday and today, approximately 20,000 new signatures have been added to the petition. ·
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The Badger Cull (Massacre) is hellish. The same people who are intent on killing countless thousands of innocent bagers kill millions of helpless cows. Badgers and cows have more earthly value than the murderous humans who kill them in the most ungodly manner.
How can this "cull" reduce instances of Btb in Badgers, as suggested by Clive Aslet of Countrylife magazine, when their intent is not to kill infected Badgers but instead to kill at least 70% of the Badger population whether or not the target animals are infected.
This plan is insane and we WILL stop it!
Regardless of government policy, DEFRA or the NFU we will stop this cull! Animal rights groups are mobilising large numbers of campaigners and we are determined to disrupt the cull by any means !!!
Farmers tell you how much they care for your animals but the truth is they don't. Animals are given chemical laden feeds to maximise milk production with little thought to how this is affects their immune system. Cows are fed minimum rations thus consistently underweight and under nourished to save money. The use of artificial insemination and selective breading has reduced the gene pool to such an extent that cows have become susceptible to developing all manor of illnesses bTB, mastitis, mad cow disease, anaplasmosis, calf scours, BVD, IBR the list is endless. The greed of farmers has become so that now there is pressure to introduce genetically modified breeds into the mix! Where is that going to lead us?
Farmers have created all of these problems and they are blaming the wildlife. They need to take a step back and look at what they are doing, because from where I'm standing it looks bloody grim!
Like we believe anything the huntin' and fishin' brigade from Country Life say. Good for the badgers - hogwash!
For as long as farmers go against nature and farm intensively we will always have Btb. It's far too easy to blame badgers . Farmers have brought this on themselves. They are greedy and want to maximise their profits no matter what damage they do. They keep their cattle in close confinement therefore this disease can pass easily to other cattle. Some farmers don't even let their cows graze in meadows as nature intended and only turf them out for a short while when they stop producing milk. They blame anyone and anything for their own wrong doings. Has anyone ever thought that it is the cattle that are infecting the badgers? I stopped buying milk a long time ago. I don't want to ingest antibiotics and steroids thank you very much. I now buy 'KARA' NON DAIRY MILK and I suggest everyone else does the same. That'll teach them to abuse their animals by not allowing their cattle to have a life worth living. Go against nature and Mother Nature will rise up and bite you on the bum.
We the British travel far and wide to other so called Third world countries preaching not to slaughter tigers, lions and so on ...but ,right here at our doorstop we have more access to better scientific and natural methods and eminent brains to help us with the research into TB and not really the badgers to blame for it. But,nevertheless,we seem so stupid,ignorant and keen to kill our own wildlife at our doorsteps..farmers know nothing but commercial monies ..they cry wolf for their poverty and changed ways of farming ethos..but not really guardians of our countryside!! One has to look at the way poor cows were culled alive when the BSE crisis occured..literally cows burnt alive in a cull as farmers were too greedy to spend monies on bullets or injections for their poor cows...so wake up to this nasty unfounded cull ...and stop it . We have badgers around where we live ..dare I say ..better not come around here as Defra is getting wrong aGAIN!!
Makes one wonder whether Defra will in its Diminished intelligence and ignorance acknowledge the NHS to cull people with TB in the future!!!!! Its beggars belief!!!