When journalists were summoned to a stuffy room in Whitehall to hear Defra's scientists explain why a cull of badgers was a necessary step to combat bovine TB in cattle, we were given a formidable array of statistics. There were 3,622 new outbreaks of TB in cattle in 2010, a 7.5% increase on the previous year, leading to the slaughter of 25,000 cattle. Over the next decade, TB in cattle is projected to cost £1bn. Nearly one in four cattle farms in the south-west is currently restricted (farmers are not free to sell or move their cattle) because of the disease.
Behind these figures is genuine misery. Farmers have seen herds they have tended for generations destroyed. They are desperate for something to be done about badgers, which scientists agree are one way in which TB is transmitted.
Human misery verses the slaughter of one of Britain's best-loved animals has created a polarised debate. Our attachment to badgers may be irrational when we already cull plenty of wildlife, from deer to grey squirrels. But the proposed pilot cull is just as irrational. The mood of Defra's vets and scientists – one of "there is no alternative" – was reminiscent of the government's attitude before the Iraq war. Minds had already been made up and now the facts were being marshalled to support them.
The new pilot cull is not scientific. It is not randomised or replicated, there are no controls and no independent scientist at the helm, and the government has no clue if it will be effective.
The science has already happened. The randomised badger culling trial was a heroic, £56m, 10-year project, overseen by Sir John Bourne, a hugely respected scientist. After trapping and shooting in cages nearly 12,000 badgers, they found culling produced a net reduction of bovine TB in cattle of 16%.
So culling works, in a very limited way. As Professor Lord Krebs, who recommended the original cull trial, put it: this expensive process left nearly 85% of the problem still there.
The new pilot cull is different in one crucial respect: instead of being trapped in cages, there will be "controlled" shooting: badgers will be lured to feeding stations at night where professional marksmen will bring them down.
This has never been done before. At best, its effectiveness is unproven. At worst, scientists say it is a recipe for "perturbation". Chris Cheeseman, an eminent former government scientist, has studied badgers for four decades and worked on the 10-year cull. He is also an expert marksman and, in the days when it was legal, shot badgers. Even multiple shooters firing simultaneously at a group of badgers will never kill them all, he says. Those that aren't maimed will escape. Badgers live in social groups. When these are disrupted, they abandon their setts and seek new territories – spreading disease. It would be impossible to design a better way of causing perturbation than by shooting.
Why shoot badgers in this way? Money. Defra costs cage-trapping and shooting at £2,500 per sq km a year. "Controlled" shooting, it claims, would cost just £200 per sq km a year. The latter figure is certain to be an underestimate: policing the countryside when animal rights activists disrupt the nocturnal shooting of badgers is going to be hideously complicated – and expensive.
And there are alternatives. The National Trust and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust are already vaccinating badgers against TB by trapping and injecting them. This is a "big society" solution, but it is too expensive to be used on every badger in the land.
An oral vaccine for badgers would be far cheaper because it could probably be scattered on the ground inside peanuts, every badger's favourite snack. Defra insists it is developing this, but there is no prospect of success before 2015. Here there seems to be a lack of political will – in New Zealand scientists have developed an oral vaccine to eradicate TB from its detested possum population.
Ultimately, stopping TB in cattle requires a vaccine not for badgers but for cows. The problem is distinguishing between a vaccinated cow and a cow with TB. Scientists are close to devising a reliable test to distinguish between the two, but Britain would then need to persuade the rest of the world to accept that we were selling them vaccinated cattle, not cattle with TB.
Until then, the smartest approach would be to learn to live with TB: to compensate farmers properly, to farm more disease-resistant cattle breeds and even give farmers incentives to diversify away from cattle in disease hotspots. Most radically of all, we could ask whether we really need to slaughter every cow carrying a disease that poses minimal risk to human beings.
Comments
15 December 2011 7:38PM
Well we all know this but the Tories love killing things,it's in their blood.
15 December 2011 7:41PM
Anyway controlled reduction sounds so much nicer than slaughter.
15 December 2011 7:43PM
If the weasels from the Wild Wood come after old Badger , they had better watch out !
15 December 2011 7:47PM
You could ask but I think you would soon find the problem if you were to go into a cubicle house in the winter full of cows breathing heavily on you to get them out for milking each day.
If there was less control of the disease then bovine TB would increase dramatically (it is already rising rapidly) and then it would be a huge occupational health risk. Also any failure of systems could then have potential for public health risks.
15 December 2011 7:48PM
Bovine TB costs the UK taxpayer (including me) a lot each year to compensate farmers for their losses. The farmers claim that badgers are to blame. It follows that IF the badgers are not the main cause it must be something else and the best candidate is the way that farming is carried out; moving live cattle many times during their lives and cross infecting.
If it turned out that it was the farmers' own fault through these profitable but bad practices, then I think the public would object if they got compensation as they do today. So it follows that in those areas that badgers are to be culled, bovine TB compensation should be stopped. If the level of TB doesn't drop (as some us us suspect will be the case) then it is proper that farmers should pick up the tab or change their ways.
15 December 2011 7:55PM
IF the badgers are not the main cause it must be something else and the best candidate is the way that farming is carried out; moving live cattle many times during their lives and cross infecting.
If you look into the subject, you'll find there are a lot of farms that never import or export cattle, instead breeding all their own animals and keeping them fenced from other people's cattle.
These are called "closed herds". They are also often extensive farms with cattle grazing out-of-doors as long as the weather and the grass are up to it (which is about seven months a year in the UK)
They still get bovine TB. Wonder how?
15 December 2011 8:01PM
The proposed cull is clearly remarkably stupid on a whole number of levels - it won't solve the problem, it will be expensive, and there is a very real risk that people will be killed or injured in the inevitable clashes between animal rights activists and armed farmers.
However, I have a sneaking suspicion that Spelman is counting on it being knocked on the head by a legal challenge, as happened in Wales. That way she can say she was going to implement the 'gerroff moi larnd' tendency's preferred 'solution', but was stymied by the judiciary. Absolute favourite for the Tories, I reckon, would be for it to be stopped in the European courts.
However, if it goes through, it will be very messy indeed, and a propaganda disaster for the government.
15 December 2011 8:02PM
This is wrong. Just wrong. There's no way other to describe it. They're doing this out of pleasure to go and shoot something rather than the need to curb bovine TB.
DEFRA in my eyes cannot be called an Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As this is just going to kill potentially thousands of innocent animals for the sake of enjoyment.
Professional Marksman? My ass. This is nothing more than glorified slaughter without reason. The study above proved that there is only a 16% reduction to the thread. This is going to solve no problem at the expense of our wildlife and on that basis it is wrong.
Maybe the army should be dispatched to 'pick' off humans who are deemed pests to the environment? Maybe a few corporate bankers, a few politicians who cannot think for themselves apparently or on balance, a few students, just so that we can say we're better at it than America. The Culling of Humans if done on the same scale will drastically reduce disease, environmental destruction, the recession, unemployment ratings. We'd be able to claim being the healthiest place in the world because there would be no one in hospitals, our prisons would be empty.
It's not that I think badgers are cute and cuddly. I run the opposite direction as I know just how aggressive and destructive they can be. Yet killing for this reason is stupid. We kill grey squirrels primarily to save the extinction of red squirrels. If we didn't, red squirrels would be dead. We cull deer only to keep the population in check. We do not attempt the extinction of an animal just to stop something like a disease, we quarantine and segregate if needs be.
I wouldn't have minded so much if hunters were actually hunting, but baiting? I hold nothing but contempt for you 'Professional Marksmen and Women'.
15 December 2011 8:03PM
In order to make this assertion, it sounds like you have very good insight into how the disease is spread and are in fact a lot more knowledgeable than vets and the scientists who advised the government.
One of these scientists was Prof Donnelly. Prof Donnelly was deputy chair during the RBCT , and partly responsible for designing the trial. In 2010 published a paper titled
Is There an Association between Levels of Bovine Tuberculosis in Cattle Herds and Badgers
In this she stated the following
The results indicate that TB in cattle herds could be substantially reduced, possibly even eliminated, in the absence of transmission from badgers to cattle.
Perhaps you need to advise her that she has got it wrong.
15 December 2011 8:20PM
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15 December 2011 8:33PM
However Prof Christl Donnelly along with the rest of the ISG scientists has reservations about the effectiveness of this Government's planned badger cull.
See this Letter to the Times 13 July 2011, to which she is a signatory:
“Sir – Sir David King’s article (“If we want dairy farms, we must cull badgers” 8 July 2011) contributes little scientific insight to the debate on controlling cattle TB. Defra has proposed that badger culls be initiated and funded by farmers themselves. Having overseen a decade-long programme of independently-audited and peer-reviewed research on this topic, we caution that such culls may not deliver the anticipated reductions in cattle TB. King previously agreed with our conclusion that – because of the way culling affects badgers’ ecology – only large-scale, highly coordinated, simultaneous and sustained culls could have positive impacts. Delivering and maintaining such culls would raise substantial challenges for farmers, with a risk of increasing, rather than reducing, disease incidence. Defra’s own assessments suggest that participating farmers will lose more, financially, than they gain. King asserts that shooting free-ranging badgers – Defra’s preferred culling method – “would be an effective and considerably cheaper alternative”, but there are no empirical data on the cost or effectiveness (or indeed humaneness or safety) of controlling badgers by shooting, which has been illegal for decades. If the government decides to proceed with this untested and risky approach, it is vital that it also instigates well-designed monitoring of the consequences.
John Bourne, Christl Donnelly, David Cox, George Gettinby, John McInerney, Ivan Morrison & Rosie Woodroffe
Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB 1998-2007″
15 December 2011 8:36PM
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15 December 2011 8:40PM
Yeah...
15 December 2011 8:44PM
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15 December 2011 8:45PM
It's worse than you fear. They're arming themselves as we speak. No one is safe. Our very civilization is under threat from the badger menace. We must strike now before it's too late.
http://www.plungeproductions.com/wp-content/gallery/badger-badger-badger/taxidermy-stuffed-badger-e.jpg
Honestly, don't you think you sound just a little bit hysterical?
15 December 2011 8:48PM
I know full well how mean and aggressive Badgers can be. Already covered that point. EVERY ANIMAL is capable of causing damage. Including that little bunny you see hopping across a meadow. One of my neighbours children had their finger bitten off by a surprisingly aggressive rabbit while out playing (I don't know the details). The family went out and slaughtered as many as they could find. The one benefit being they didn't have to do much shopping for meat for a while. The fact that they ate what they killed that made it not such a bad decision.
Still I can also turn your comment on its head.
"Humans are capable of killing maiming, torturing so we should 'cull' them to within an inch of their existence"
Please. Revenge gets you nowhere.
15 December 2011 8:49PM
ahahahaha lol!
15 December 2011 8:53PM
permanentmarker thank you for these references - much appreciated.
If bovine TB and the viability of dairy farming in England when competing with farmers abroad was considered to be something worth addressing properly then we would not be going for such a cull and instead would be going for a cull which was managed by the government - in fact more like how the Welsh were looking at doing it. As it is dairy farming in England comes lower down on the list of priorities and the government seems quite happy for farmers to foot the bill when many of them are going out of business because of low returns.
If the government really wanted to address the problem they would probably be looking more seriously at other more expensive options which have a greater chance of success. Such an option may be gassing setts. Such an operation could perhaps start with Cornwall with its sea boundaries, see if this is successful, and then work up the South west.
15 December 2011 9:00PM
Thats a fair comment.......but how do you think I should change my ways?
15 December 2011 9:04PM
Probably help if we knew some of your practices ^_^
Generally better animal welfare, feed, etc. I know it's not profitable to do so however.
15 December 2011 9:11PM
Well Finchleyite inferred (guessed) that people who have problems with Bovine tb should change their ways.......so I presume there must be some background knowledge !!
What would be general better welfare?
I feed them grass, hay and silage.....what could be better?
What else?
15 December 2011 9:23PM
What about space? There are a lot of farms out there that think they can cram as many cows into their field as possible and get away with no disease. As with fish farms, that isn't true, but can't stop stupidity *shrug* But yes, do they adequate space both indoor and outdoor?
Do they have access to clean, fresh water?
What about bathing? I know one farm that engages in this practice.
What is the biodiversity of the plants in the fields themselves? Are they left as meadows when unused or do they just have one type of grass?
What about the veterinary practices? Regular inoculations and check ups? Including regular TB checks not only on the cows themselves but also on the land?
How frequently are your cattle rotated (i.e changed fields) and how long is it until they get back to the first field. The longer the better.
15 December 2011 9:25PM
http://www.thecattlesite.com/diseaseinfo/185/tb-bovine-tuberculosis
This might be a useful link, though I'm sure you've already read it.
15 December 2011 9:29PM
I guess just kill everything apart from your blessed cows is the answerer,like they killed all the birds of prey that were responsible for eating the odd pheasant.
15 December 2011 9:32PM
as well as lambs, ducks, a couple of geese, including one or two pigs actually (not sure how they accomplished that). The main downfall of the Birds of Prey however was not being shot by farmers, but rather by the egg thefts.
15 December 2011 9:38PM
Good questions
Yes. They have plenty of space, especially outdoors how about 1-2 per acre?
yes they have access to clean fresh water (I am a farmer).
No The cows do not bathe....but they often roll in the straems and mudholes.
Plenty of biodiversity around the fields in the hedges (they are very old) the fields are a mixture of grasses and clover. Most of them are not meadows.......it is between 500 and 1000 feet a.s.l on Exmoor.
Regular Tb checks carried out as it is compulsory. No t b checks on the land.
The cattle are changed fields every couple of days (approximately.
Back to the first field ? Tough one......lets say 2 weeks. But some fields are used less frequently by cows and more by the sheep.
15 December 2011 9:39PM
So we are going to spend alot of money, and I do query the £200 per sq m figure, on something that will not work and is very likely to make the problem worse. Brilliant.
15 December 2011 9:40PM
No I have not read it. Seems fine. Thanks
15 December 2011 9:42PM
Dont see how any of this is relevant.
15 December 2011 9:43PM
I think the essence of your post was 'Kill them, kill them all', strange attitude from a scientist?
There's been several articles about badger culling in the Graun over the past few months, and I have huge reservations as to why the Government have decided to go with shooting to solve the problem. I see that DEFRA have backtracked from their statement that cattle to cattle contact was a major contributory factor, whilst Lord Kreb's, the author of the previous report advocating culling made this statement a few months ago. .
"You cull intensively for at least four years, you will have a net benefit of reducing TB in cattle of 12% to 16%. So you leave 85% of the problem still there, having gone to a huge amount of trouble to kill a huge number of badgers,It doesn't seem to be an effective way of controlling the disease."
One factor which will result from this cull is 'perturbation', recognised by other countries but which seems to have been ignored by the Government which appears to want to bring back hunting via the back door.
The Government were reported that they were going to issue licences for individuals to legally kill badgers, (currently a protected species), which upset the farming community as many had reservations as to the type of person who'd be allowed to roam their land shooting indiscriminately at anything that moved.
The post by MiltonKeynesWoman is a sad reflection on us as a species when, with all the science and alternative methods at our disposal, the only solution we can decide on is genocide.
15 December 2011 9:49PM
Check the links to the bottom they might provide some helpful tips on better animal welfare. I know it's organic nonsense but a number of suggestions only require a change in practice rather than a need to make any investment.
The specific microbe that often causes bTB lives for a bout eight week in cow pat. You might want to consider a cowpat scoop or doing the rotation a little slower. You might need less cows or more fields...
15 December 2011 9:50PM
Because, like humans, they can catch TB from air-borne germs - tubercules. If we weren't so hamstrung by EU regulations, we could vaccinate the cattle - just as we do our children! The badgers then wouldn't matter a jot - and could enjoy their life, not become hunted into extinction, which I fear will be their fate!
15 December 2011 9:51PM
Shooting badgers is obscene.
At least give them the thrill of the chase.
15 December 2011 9:54PM
Good one!!
15 December 2011 9:56PM
A cowpat scoop?
A cowpat scoop?
I MIGHT need less cows or more fields?
Do you know how much shit comes out of a cow?
Do you know what happens in the winter?
do you think that when I am on a couple of ropes at 4 in the morning trying to get a calf out I will have my cowpat scoop to hand?
Its an interesting concept.
If I get more fields you can be sure there will be badgers in them.
15 December 2011 9:57PM
This is top quality.
15 December 2011 10:10PM
Hehe.
I am fully aware. If my dog can fertilise a small...well what the locals refer to as a mountain, then I'm sure you've got a lot to deal with. =D It was just a suggestion as it can cause transmission of TB or keep the usually slow growing disease alive long enough for the cow to ingest it.
I am assuming during the cold months (i.e the really cold ones) they're kept inside, which only concentrates the issues you have.
With regards to less cows or more fields, I meant that with less cows you would be able to keep them on one field longer and then move them to the next field. Or with more fields you could keep up the same rotation speed but still get the eight week cycle slotted in. Without the need for a scoop ^_^
Have you thought about taking on farm volunteers? I'm sure there'd be a few people keen to learn about animal care and how a farm works and what goes into running them. Effective free labour! And the only thing you really want them to do is clean up cow crap. Rewarding them is gonna be a toughie. Free milk? (I'm assuming like lots of other dairy farmers, you throw away quite a lot)
O.o you make it sound like you have a badger in every field. I'm sure that's not the case >.< Although don't farmers usually shoot pest on their land?
15 December 2011 10:27PM
I cannot believe that we going to kill Brock. I have a strong Tory tendency. This is breaking my heart. There must be another way. Surely.
15 December 2011 10:28PM
@ MiltonKeynesWoman
Excuse me - you're a biologist and you say something like this?
Badgers are PART of the natural habitat of our country. They are not some recent destructive import, they've been here since the Ice Age ended. Before we humans came along and messed it all up, they played their part in the ecological structure along with every other living creature and plant.
God, it'll be Reds Under the Beds next. Get a grip!
The last badger I saw was heading at top speed for its sett, not threatening me with GBH from tooth and claw. Never mind the natural violence of the badger, I think you need to take a good long look in the mirror.
You're a biologist and you appear to be seriously suggesting that a major native mammal species be exterminated from this country by a particularly unpleasant and cruel method. If that is really so, then you should be ashamed of yourself.
15 December 2011 10:34PM
You gotta write more! *grins*
15 December 2011 10:46PM
Well we all know this but the Tories love killing things,it's in their blood
You said it all there.
Bastards.
16 December 2011 12:40AM
I've got an idea - how about getting the upper classes to all get on their horses and hunt the badgers down with the aid of a pack of beagles! Then we would all be finally convinced that they were only indulging in such activities in order to protect the countryside from vermin and not to satisfy their own sadistic tendencies. A win-win situation.
16 December 2011 1:11AM
If we culled the human population starting with the rich we then wouldn't need to feed on so many cows and the badgers and cattle could live happily ever after.
I pretty sure than humans won't though, until they have exterminated all other forms of life that doesn't fit in with their ideal world.
16 December 2011 1:36AM
haven't you heard of a Happy Christmas then?
16 December 2011 2:10AM
I apologise if the point has already been made ... but why don't the farmers vaccinate cattle??
16 December 2011 6:03AM
16 December 2011 6:27AM
I think there are many other solutions other than just 'shoot them'. Farmers could instead utilize better protection such as better fencing which may not eradicate the problem but neither will shooting them. They probably want the shooting because it is just the most satisfying and vengeful way to deal with them. But as its their land and badgers aren't exactly an endangered animal their disposal is at the mercy of the farmers.
16 December 2011 7:27AM
The Tories pretend that badgers are poor people. It's brilliant. They shout tally-ho and everything.
16 December 2011 7:45AM
There`s another way - go vegan: it`s satisfying, healthier (ask the BMA), ethical, and there`s no need to kill badgers, because they`re no longer a "threat".
16 December 2011 8:13AM
I get it.
People who used to work for the government are "eminent" and always right but anyone currently employed by Defra is such a complete that they need not even be consulted, let alone have their contrary opinion referenced in an article