Badger Cull

[ThursdayLast]

Anyone have any opinions on the badger cull?
Or the protests surrounding them?

Jellykat,

I think you are underestimating the farming community and their comprehension of the law.

Badger baiting USED TO BE fun. Now it isn't. Please don't muddy the waters with unfounded accusations.

Why is it that some people assume that farmers hate animals such as badgers and would like to see culling and preferably in a cruel way! It is insulting to the farming community.

Farmers and countrymen/women are just as capable of being law abiding citizens, and, more importantly, can be as passionate about animal welfare as anybody else and indeed are so, more often than not, in my experience.

They are often in a better position to get a sensible and realistic perspective of it all too.

Yes frogwatcher, well put.

I live amongst the farming community in rural Wales, believe me, i do know what goes on..

There's a reason why security is so 100% airtight with ID etc, when our badger vaccination programme is running!

Jellykat what is the reason for the 100% security? Surely there is as much risk from those activists that think your trapping the badgers and vaccinating them is cruel, as from the few rouge farmers (why do they have to be farmers?) who want to kill the trapped badger (assuming that is what you are getting at?). Surely a farmer could much more easily kill a badger on his/her farm than going to all the effort of killing it in your trap?

Confused.

frogwatcher I haven't said all farmers aren't capable of being compassionate law abiding citizens, of course they are.. i'm saying there are a few who really don't give a monkeys about wildlife (or domestic pets for that matter!)

Jellykat - that is not just farmers though is it. In all sectors of society there are some who are cruel to animals.

I still think that, in general, farmers have a pretty good idea of what is needed in the countryside - after all that is their area of expertise.

I would still like to know the reason for your 100% security? And why you think killing a trapped badger is more humane than free shooting?

I and my colleagues were labelled activists by the media, and the then Welsh minister for agriculture. These activists included a 73 year farmer who was waiting for a hip op. and a 60 yr old in a wheelchair.. and i'm a sweetie We were initially against any badger intervention, but soon realised a vaccination programme could be good compromise for everyone.

Yes i agree frogwatcher, but my neighbours found men wondering around their land, 'surveying the setts' who had no id and weren't verified on the phone by the relevant government body (they disappeared while she was finding out)
All i know is the 2 officials really stressed that only they were to be allowed on the property, and we were given a phone number to call if we were approached by anyone else.

When the cull here was abandoned in favour of vaccination, Elin Jones the ag. minister who tried to push it through, advised farmers to 'take matters into their own hands'.

I'm sorry that that has been your experience Jellykat.

I really hope that the morality of some welsh people not become the subject of this thread.

Perhaps the vaccination compromise will be a success, but in my opinion five years is too long to wait to find out. The strain on the human element is too high; economic, personal. That to me is more important than the life of a badger.

I'm sure the agriculture minister you mentioned was reacting in frustration. The farming community often feels like it is dictated to from the city, and not considered in policy making decisions.

jellykat can you respond to my earlier post about the effectiveness of the vaccine and the % of badgers that would need to be vaccinated for it to be effective, and how this is ascertained?

Also, if a cull will "only cut TB by 12 - 15%", how much of a reduction would a vaccine in badgers acheive?

well

as a farmer in an unaffected area I can see both sides - I love badgers (or brocks as we colloquially know them) and spent an awful lot of my childhood going brock watching with my dad who also is a farmer and also thinks badgers are wonderful.

However, if we were talking about rats would people be as up in arms? Or has the badger been romanticised above other similar rural pests?

The protesters are shouting the science doesn't support this!!! where as there is equally as much science to support the cull.

I don't know where people get this idea of factory farming from. I don't know any farmers in our area who don't farm using traditional methods e.g. animals outside eating grass in summer and spring and indoors in winter to keep them warm. So much of what animal rights people claim is happening on british farms is just alien to me and i don't recognise as being actual farming methods. Unfortunately an awful lot of American propaganda is used and an assumption is made that things are the same in the UK. Let me be clear - the UK has the highest farming animal welfare standards in the world.

There is so much other awful stuff going on in the world to both humans and animals - why do people care so much about a few measly badgers, when the best overall result of all this is going to be a healthier badger and cattle population and the worst is some sick TB ridden badgers get humanely culled but it has no overall affect on bovine TB?

Sigh..

Entirely agree about British farming methods. And what we don't want is even more British farmers going out of business and us consumers having to buy food from overseas producers who don't care as much about animal welfare.

Coming from a heavily affected area, I too see the good in keeping the status quo. No one wants to get rid of the badgers, they are an essential part of the British ecosystem.

I have just seen on another thread that some people accuse the govt of only sanctioning this cull 'to appease'.

Well why not??? Why don't the people affected by the draconian measures currently in place deserve to be appeased??? My family have been suffering financially for years without offending your sensibilities, isn't it fair that for the sake of a few badgers someone tries to help them?

Thursday The culls are set to run annually for 4 years with a 5 year follow up - 9 years in all.

The former minister (who is a farmers daughter) lives in a village 6 miles away from me, and is the MP for the county above, so not really viewed as a city type, she was put under pressure by her peers.

cazThe true effectiveness of the vaccine is being tested in situ in exactly the same way as the cull is, but with quicker results long term.(see above)

I just think there are other things that should be put in place, better testing methods, tighter bio security, and yes there is a cattle vaccination but its vetoed by the EU atm, because its vaccinated cow gives the same readings as a reactor when tested - maybe that should be worked on fast.

Don't forget although culling might reduce the TB figures by up to 15% there are possibilties that TB may rise by that or more in the surrounding areas!

I agree totally that our animal welfare is far better than other countries.

But I cant believe westmoreland that you do not believe in factory farming (or am I being thick and you are being sarcastic?).

There are loads of intensively reared animals on farms in the UK. Loads and loads of farms do it. For all forms of meat (although less so in cattle in my experience). Not to the extent of the EU I admit - but more animals with less space than I would like to see.

I only buy british meat - and my dc are veggie when out as they are worried that the restaurant hasn't bought uk meat and they refuse to eat other countries meat. I am proud!

please...

who really thinks this is about trying to appease the farmers... really...?

so the group of people that are already being screwed everywhich other way for providing the nations food just have an irrational dislike of badgers mixing with their cattle and therefore are just going ahead with this cull for what? ...for shits and giggles?...because they are evil animal haters? beacuse they don't want to see any more healthy cattle needlessly die?

and the polticians are of course just going ahead with it to keep the farmers happy rather you know, the easy stuff they could so that the public would support, like setting fair prices for meat and milk....? or encouraging locally sold produce?

For me the fact that the govt has pushed ahead with this against popular public opinion when it has no financial or popularist benefit whatsoever for them (unlike benefit cuts) demonstrates that they feel it is a wise, but unpopular decision that has to be given a go.

Public opinion of farming and farmers in this country is just so skewed its laughable. We are not so far away from a global food crisis, this country needs to start speaking to its farmers and encouraging growth and sustainability in the industry rather than making it us and them and pandering to townie animal rightists.

Rant over!

I believe in factory farming I just know it doesn't happen on the scale that most people believe it happens in this country.

I meant to put a disclaimer in my first post about chickens (frankly disgusting the way they are raised in this country) and to a certain extent pigs in some settings but this is improving. But again, I don't recognise those practises as 'farming' and it isn't 'farmers' that do it but big agri-business. Don't tar actual farmers with that brush. Its like claiming ASDA is an artisan bakery.

Why do you, like many others, always presume the animal rightists live in the town 'Westmorland* ??

Oops Westmorland ( see above )

Westmorland - it is quite large scale in this country and potentially getting bigger with the proposals for those massive farms (can't remember the details but massive sheds holding huge numbers of animals down south somewhere - nothring traditional or personal about that.). But then I was thinking mainly poultry (not just chickens) and pigs. Pigs get a raw deal although not as awful as in EU.

I still count it as farming - not in the traditional sense but farming all the same. It is a new face of farming in the same way as ASDA is a new face of bakery goods. A very knowledgeable farmer I know works for a national and he counts himself as a real farmer.

But we get off topic! Back to the badgers ......

Trialling the cull has begun...that is the first step, a step that can't be taken with an illegal vaccine.

Westmorland There was a big piece on countryfile lately re. Intensive cattle farming, they basically said a lot of farmers were moving towards it and it's the future of farming. It's definitely growing.

And I'm with Westmorland when it comes to the definition of farming, this area is made up of relatively small scale farmers who really look after their animals.
I'm not denying that the industrial scale farms exist, they are just not what I consider during debates such as these. They are perfectly able to buy favourable policy should they wish

What illegal vaccine Thursday? I'm confused..