Badger Cull... Please Read + Sign Petition/Chain yourself to something!

[BadgerBadger]

Not been online for a while so apologies if this has already been done.

The final date for any letters/petitions of opposition to the proposed mass \link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,1725254,00.html\badger cull} is the 10th of this month.

If you haven't already, please take a look at the article and consider signing \link{http://www.stopthecull.info/emaildefra.php\this} email/form created by the Badger Trust, to DEFRA, it only takes a minute or two!

I think you will find that the reason less foxes are shot is because they are hunted with hounds. Wild boar and the like are stalked and shot, usually in forests and undergrowth so there is more chance of a shooting accident.

Yes but the French also value their farmers and farming industry so a badger cull due to tb wouldn't have the same impact. I also can't think of anyone I know who hunts, shoots or fishes who doesn't like wildlife and the countryside.

I can.

They leave their cartridges all over the place, as well as other rubbish. They are rude and ill-mannered. They drive their jeeps where they shouldn't. Fishermen leave their tackle in the rivers to get tangled up in a swan. Being a hunter does not mean you respect nature. It means you like killing things.

There are exceptions of course. But these are the hunters, both English and French, that I know.

Sorry,I'm another one who won't be signing.Farmers are suffering enough without having to deal with TB too.

Also,Thirtysix farmers didn't knowingly feed dead animals to live ones.Animal feed has protein ect listed on the side of the pack,exactly like our food does,but no one tells you were it comes from.Most farmers had no idea what the source of the protein was.It is like you or me feeding our children something & then being castigated because we didn't know its original source.

Rhubarb - I am very sorry that this is your experience of the people who shoot and fish. The people you are referring to are not representative of the norm. The vast majority of people involved in blood sports love the countryside and all that it entails - including the wildlife. Hunting, shooting and fishing is all about conservation and with farming has shaped the British countryside. What is your basis for saying that people are trespassing with 4x4's? Are you sure they don't have the landowners permission?

Done!

Rhubarb, I cracked up laughing re the frozen badger. V surreal. She must have had a big freezer.

She does have a big freezer! She's forever freezing dead things, you could be looking for frozen chips or whatever and you come across a fecking badger!

Re the 4x4s, they didn't have permission to churn up the land on mil's farm. And I doubt many farmers would be pleased to see them parked in the middle of their crop field. But most people in France are scared of the hunters so they say nothing lest they get their own vehicles shot at. And I jest not!

It is the same here but these people are paochers and it is unfair to lump them in with legitimate hunters.

Thanks to those of you who did take a look at the article and esp those that signed!

FWIW, I grew up in the countryside, on a smallholding. As a child, I was quite desensitised towards hunting/ slaughter etc. As an adult, my opinions have altered but I didn't sign this petition for purely sentimantal reasons.

The Government's advisory body has instructed that cattle to cattle transmission is responsible or 80% of BTB and that until this and other aspects of BTB control are addressed, a badger cull will not make any difference.

Some bodies are of the opinion that it will destabilise BTB among badgers (of which a low percentage of dead animals were tested positive) and so increase the risks to cattle.

Callisto, each to their own. I didn't wish to encourage anyone to sign that felt adverse to doing so but did hope some would read the article at least.

There really was no need to patronise in the way you did. Believing the government are, as per, using a sledgehammer to crack a nut does not mean that we are all what-a-fluffy-cute-animal-sentamentalists. Maybe some of us are able to see a situation that (certainly in my case) wont affect my livelyhood with a little balance and clarity!
(Maybe being directly involved with killing on a day to day basis normalises it for you, as it did me, as a child.)

I wasn't being patronising, Badgerbadger, sorry if you took it that way. There is a huge amount of 'fwuffy animal' sentimentality in this country, which doesn't help these animals one bit. I don't work in an abbatoir so there is no 'day-to-day killing' for me.

My objection to this petition is that it makes a badger (or whichever animal is flavour of the month at the time) worth more than a farmer, his family, his livlihood and his herd of dairy/beef cattle (which will all have to be slaughtered if tested positive for tb). The culling or not of badgers won't affect me directly either so I think that I see this situation perfectly clearly.

I think you shouldn't blame the badgers for the farmers raw deal, try culling some of the government instead, that actually might make a difference!

Methinks that often the wrong animals are being culled all the time. I hear the New Labour breed of animals are particularly infectious right now.

I definately agree with that Rhubarb

A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go...

Hee heee.Bags I get Margaret Beckett

Over the past few days the badger culling question has been back in the news, e.g. here

It seems that there is no longer any reasonable doubt that badgers spread bovine TB, so would you still oppose a cull?