| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| bodger |
Badger CullA charity group is trying to stop a badger cull that is set to take place in North Pembrokeshire, on the grounds that its not based on scientific evidence.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8339112.stm If they are so convinced that the a cull is not based on scientific fact, my arguement would be for them as distasteful as it is, to be prepared to sacrifice the badgers in one small area, discredit the practice and thereby save the rest of the UKs population from being faced with the same prospect? IMO, it depends upon just how confident the Badger Trust is in what it preaches. Hopefully, it should go a long way to putting many of the arguements and counter arguements to bed. |
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| Ixy |
That would be my view aswell - the debate isn't going away so I just want them to get on with it so we can find out it's pointless and leave badgers alone from then on 
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| vegplot |
My fear is if the cull goes ahead and bovine TB doesn't decline the conclusion will be 'inconclusive' rather than proving the issue one way or the other. | ||||||||
| bodger |
If the cull goes ahead and the incidence of bovine TB doesn't go down, then IMO the result will have been conclusive.
If no badgers = no TB in cattle then the case is proven. If no badgers = the same level of bovine TB then the case is proven. |
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| vegplot |
I agree with your summary but I fear the official line may be somewhat different. Books can be cooked and often don't taste very nice. |
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| RichardW |
I thought that they had already done some trials?
Yeh there have been quite a few http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMB_en-GBGB318GB318&q=badger+cull+trial&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK|countryGB&aq=f&oq= (you will need to copy & past that) (tried to shorten it but it wont work) |
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| Ixy |
I agree, but floundering under TB regs in this no-man's land until something decisive is done is no good 
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| bodger |
I say get it done and sees what happens.
Anecdotally I could say that there are far more badgers than there used to be and in places where they've never been before but that proves nothing. |
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| Chez |
I think they've already done a trial in either Eire or N Ireland and it made the problem worse. Can't remember enough to google for it, sorry. | ||||||||
| bodger |
If its proven not to be the badgers then attention will have to be focused on finding another cause. | ||||||||
| Chez |
Yes. It's easy to blame the badgers rather than look for other reasons, I suppose. | ||||||||
| vegplot |
I just the results from a cull are conclusive either way. | ||||||||
| RichardW |
We have badgers in this area but are still a low risk TB area. | ||||||||
| bodger |
I'm sure that lots of other avenues of enquiry have been taken up though and that this proposed action is not being taken on a mere whim. |
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| Rob R |
Re: Badger Cull
Aren't you worried that there might be a clerical error? 
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| bodger |
I'm more concerned that nothing is done.
As Richard has said, we have loads of badgers where we are, but a low incidence of Bovine TB in cattle. I trust that in areas such as ours, the badger population has been tested to see whether they have a correspondingly low number of cases in their population. |
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| JohnH |
The tests have been done is S Ireland. Some areas the badger has been completely eradicated and the Bovine TB problem, far from getting better, has actually got worse. | ||||||||
| bodger |
Can you give us a source for that information ? | ||||||||
| colour it green |
yes i remember that |
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| colour it green |
if you look at this BBC article
you see that the badger trust claimed the cull in Ireland failed, whereas the NFUI accused the badger charities of cooking the books - so... it comes down to interpretation of figures. no doubt this will happen every time. |
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| vegplot |
It's what I suspect will happen. |
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| Ixy |
If only the government would put some meaningful TB controls in place over what we can control - cattle, instead of being wimps and letting the badger debate run and run... | ||||||||
| bodger |
The cull should take place and then the results monitored by a truly independant body. Asking the badger trusts to do this, would be like asking the Ford Motor Corp to do a survey as to which is the best car. The farmers are truly desperate and simply want to be able to keep their cattle without the threat of TB.
The government can always sack the independant body if they don't like their report.
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| Tavascarow |
As far as I'm aware this is part of a trial where in some areas they cull & in others they trap & vaccinate but as culling has been carried out in high TB areas on & off since the 70s it's obviously not working so I would have thought they could have skipped that part of the trial. | ||||||||
| Nick |
There's no independant body. The agency who were responsible for the data and trials previously had their reports quashed from a very high level when the results began to show the wrong thing. This is not simple science, there's a far murkier political game being played. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I've seen bits of research strangled because the results weren't welcome. | ||||||||
| Tavascarow |
Sounds familiar. David Kelly, David Nutt et al. |
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| Ixy |
Farmers aren't really bothered about the threat of TB to their cattle - they are tested, milk is pasteurised etc. What we're bothered about is the crazy system of testing, movement restrictions and culling. It's created shortages, driven prices of commercial cattle ridiculously high and creates an unlevel playing field as some areas have to pay £90 or so every time an animal moves, whereas others a few miles down the road don't. That's a HUGE chunk out of your margin.
IMO it also creates welfare issues too. A friend was under TB restrictions for 6 months so he could sell nothing unless it was going to slaughter. This meant he was packed to the rafters with 200 calves he was not equipped to house and feed...or send them to slaughter  This was all over 2 'inconclusive' results in a 400+ herd in a 4yr (low risk) testing zone. 
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| bodger |
The farmers are very much bothered. I've seen farmers in absolute tears as a lifetimes work has had to go into the bin. | ||||||||
| Rob R |
As her post said, that isn't the effects of the disease causing that despair, though. |
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| colour it green |
hm yeh - TB doesn't kill the cows.. badgers dont kill the cows... DEFRA kill the cows.... |
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| Rob R |
And make us pay huge amounts for testing when they've decided there is a risk. 
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| Ixy |
I don't think you read the rest of my post:
but like CIG says - wasn't TB or badgers that caused all that was it? |
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| bodger |
I'm sorry, I got the wrong end of the stick. | ||||||||
| Nick |
Shouldn't this be in the unlikely DS quotes thread? 
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| Mary-Jane |
Absolute rubbish...
Absolutely agree. Very much the case here too Bodger... 
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| Nick |
Read the whole post. It's badly written, but well meaning. |
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| bodger |
Up yours Nicholas. 
I'm more than prepared to admit when I'm wrong. As far as asking a farmer whether he's more worried about his cattle having TB or Defra knowing that his cattle have TB is concerned, I've always thought that the two came hand in hand. Cattle are tested before they can be sold off farm, carcasses are examined after slaughter, so in my opinion, its a done deal. Defra are going to know sooner or later if your cattle have the disease or not. I wouldn't want TB in my herd but if I did have it, I'd want to know as soon as possible. I say this, on the basis that if its caught early there maybe less onward transmission between animals. |
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| VSS |
I have huge respect for the WAG for taking the bull by the horns (sorry about the pun) and tackling this issue head on and going for a limited cull as a test.
I think the point is that all the measures that can be taken from the cattle end of things, such as regular tests, pre movement tests, herd shut downs and so on, have all been taken yet the problem continues to get worse. Therefore it makes sense to try to tackle the other end of the problem as well, the badger end. There is no point making efforts to control one end of a problem of there is no control at the other end. Just a small point to the welsh cattle owners - all welsh cattle have been TB tested this year to get an idea of the extent of the TB problem throughout Wales. The WAG have decided to repeat this next year. This mean that in effect, all of Wales will be on annual testing so everyone will have to pre movement test. |
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| Ixy |
As you say, carcasses are checked, milk is pasteurised etc. so even if the cattle do have it, it's not going to be passed on to people. The very reason we can't control it amongst cattle is because you can't even tell by looking that the animal has it, so it's no worse from a welfare POV than any other sniffle a cow might get. So TB 'the disease' is pretty low down on a farmer's list of biggest fears. The poor handling of it by the government is what brings about the heartbreak, fear, loss of livelihood etc.
I would like farmers not to be distracted from this fact by all the spin about badgers, and to perhaps realise that caveman measures like 'killing stuff' is just not going to work and instead focusing pressure on the government to change to more effective controls of the cattle. |
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| Ixy |
That's assuming that the current testing etc. is effective and that badgers ARE 'the other end' of the problem. At the moment, some cattle are tested every 4 years and some every 5 minutes, so an animal might catch TB the day after it's test and it be another 4 years before it's picked up on, by which time it could have moved around the country multiple times coughing all over everyone on it's way. The test itself is also very inaccurate, which means animals with TB are left to roam and healthy animals are culled - of course it isn't working! If it is such a massive threat to human health, should not all animals be tested every year, or even every time they move? Then farmers would all be on an equal footing again too - if everyone has to pre movement test, it becomes part of everyone's costs, not just a case of pot luck. Also, why are we culling animals which have been 'in contact with' TB and have recovered? These are exactly the animals we should be investigating as they have some kind of immunity and wit careful breeding programmes this can be passed on without the need for as much culling, badger culls, deer culls, vaccinations, movement restrictions etc etc etc. As it is, these animals are slowly being removed, leaving us with cattle MORE susceptible to TB! |
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| bodger |
Its all down to science which maybe beyond the layman or woman to fully understand. I use the word 'may' advisedly.
When out lamping, I've seen lots of badgers using the same meadows as cattle, but having said that, I've also seen deer and foxes too. Whether some people like it or not, I think that the cull of badgers has got to go ahead full bore, with the people carrying it out being allowed to go about their business unhindered. Then and only then will we have a chance of finding out whether or not badgers are being made scape goats for the rising incidence of bovine TB in cattle. I personally think that badgers are connected with the increase, but time will tell. Can some cattle be immune to TB ? Might they not show the symptoms but still be carriers of the disease? Surely, these would be the very cattle that need identifying and eradicating? It must also be realised that TB is a fairly slow but progressive disease and that its possibly just a matter of time for an infected animal that currently doesn't display symptoms to do so. . |
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| Rob R |
The trouble we face is the lack of accountability in DEFRA. We get regular testing, which doesn't work so we get more regular testing, which doesn't work so we get pre-movement testing, which doesn't work... If the same happens with badger culling where will it stop? I'd like to think that it was badgers causing it, then it would be done and dusted, but I fear a greater foe than badgers... man. | ||||||||
| Tavascarow |
The current dairy industry is dominated not only by one breed (holstein) but by a limited gene pool.
The vast majority are served through AI to the best (In production terms) bulls & maybe it's time to start looking at widening the gene pool instead of contracting it. I would be interested to see a comparison of the percentage of reactors between different breeds, sires & managment practices . It is entirely plausable that TB has been there since bovines first walked the earth & it is the managment practices that are increasing its prevalence not badgers. Animals are continually being bred for higher yields. Cows are put under such stress now that they are culled at 5 or 6 years old, whereas when my father was in the industry he often had cows that lived into their late teens one or two made it past 20 years. All of this could be contributing to what is becoming a very expensive disease but killing a dumb animal is a lot easier than telling an industry they are wrong & the public that they are going to have to pay a lot more for their milk, cheese & yoghurt. |
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| Ixy |
I think things are possibly changing in the dairy industry - I met a feed rep the other day who said 90% of all her clients were desperately crossing holsteins with anything else they could get hold of.
Bodger - immune is maybe the wrong word but they seem to become resistant - the test picks up cattle who have had contact with the disease, not necesarily that they still have it. All are culled though. My gran had TB when she was younger - we only found out after a lung scan when she was in her 70s. I think that's probably been the case for a lot of people and cattle throughout the ages. I'm not saying TB is nothing to bother about, but the pasteurising, regular testing for ALL cattle and carcass checks are a reasonable response to the threat level IMO. |
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| colour it green |
as far as I understand it - they are not trying to remove bovine TB because it is a threat to human health.. after all if a cow is found to have it.. it is killed and enters the food chain!!
milk is pasteurised etc the problem with bTB is that it reduces productivity. (please correct me if i have this wrong - it's almost impossoible to find out anything on the net cos of all the pro/anti badger stuff) IF (and it is questionable), badgers are to blame for bTB - it seems to me the only way to stop it is to kill every single badger in the country. Well, I'm against this.. I like that we still have large wild mammals, and I want them to stay. Partial culling only encourages the badgers to wander further afield looking for mates etc.. and the disease is likely to spread further. Or that's my take on it Often, it seems, 'the authorities' attempts to cure problems makes problems. For example - there wasn't much problems with fluke in NE England, until the foot and mouth thing.. the culling of whole herds and flocks, meant people went further afield to buy replacements when it was all over.. and inadvertantly introduced fluke to areas that did not have it before.... |
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| Ixy |
if productivity is the only thing affected defra should definately butt out and let farmers decide what affects their productivity - who's business is it anyway?
If I had badgers on my land I would pay to have them caught and tested, marked and released and if they were found not to have TB - protect them, in order to stop infected animals encroaching on my healthy ones' territory. |
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| VSS |
Would you say the same if we were talking about F&M? |
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| Ixy |
Yes with a capital Y! I said the exact same thing at the time! |
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| RichardW |
Its on hold now. Letter came today. |
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| Rob R |
Everything I've heard from DEFRA employees and vets about the handling of FMD supports the view that the way it was handled increased the losses. It seems like a similar disease to TB in such ways, anthrax is a different matter. |
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| mihto |
I'm rather surprised at this statement 
No, as far as our laws go TB animals certainly do not enter the food chain. Sure milk is pasteurised. That happened because of TB. Quite a bit of unpasteurised milk is used in some cheeses, on farms etc. That is one way for people to become infected. Tb in animals is a classical, huge risk to people's health. I refuse to believe that GB is any different from Norway. Please put me right on this if the British laws are different. |
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| Colin & Jan |
I'd also like to see some proper management of badgers to reduce the predation of ground nesting birds. They can be an absolute bu**er with partridges, lapwings etc.
Colin |
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| Ixy |
Apparently only 1-5% of cattle with it shed it in milk. They pasteurised milk because of TB, and how many people have TB now? You won't catch it from beef if you cook the meat - cooking is pasteurisation of meat. 90% of cattle who have it never develop clinical signs. |
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| colour it green |
I dont keep cows, but my parents do, so my information is second hand.. so please.. if i have this wrong, someone correct me.. but my understanding is yes, if you have a 'reactor' it is culled and enters the food chain - however the carcass is inspected, if there is evidence of bTB, beyond the lungs, it is destroyed. bbc link defra booklet see page 13 and page 38 |
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| Rob R |
Thanks for finding the link cig - I was just looking for it and then remembered that I can't do pdf's on this connection 
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| mihto |
Very interesting. Does the word "slaughter" mean that the meat is used for human consumption or that the animal is killed and the meat destroyed?
I read through the bit about meat not being infectious. We have a different approach as we do not have the disease among our cattle. TB has been found three times during the last 30 years, however. The infection probably crossed over from people with old TB lesions. Here the whole heard is put down and destroyed if the disease is found at the slaughterhouse. As for tuberculin testing, this is not done in Norway unless a suspicious animal has been detected at a post mortem examination. We certainly live in different worlds.
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| bodger |
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8343506.stm |
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| colour it green |
really would be useful if they tested the badgers to see if they had TB... | ||||||||
| colour it green |
yes I do understand that slaughter in this case means in the normal way at an abbatoir.. in fact it was only as recently as 2006 that milk from a reactor cow was not put in the milk tanks for human consumption. Now, apparantly.. it is mixed with slurry and spread on the land... im not personally convinced this is so ideal...
indeed, but it is so widespread here in the UK.. we cannot take the same approach. today it was announced that a program to vaccinate badgers will begin next year. This strikes me as the way forward and the cull in Pembrokeshire a terrible shame. |
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| ros |
Do you know what there is in the way of badgers/foxes etc on the land with the cattle Mihto? Is there a potential TB carrier? |
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| cab |
In terms of epidemiology, pathology and pathogenicity, the three are all radically different. Its a mistake to treat such things similarly, imho. |
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| Ixy |
Certainly when you have inconclusive results in the herd the milk still goes into the tank and you can still send animals for slaughter (for meat) - you just can't sell to anyone else.
...Unless there's no other animals on the holding/in the building they're going to I believe? |
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| Rob R |
In those terms yes, I agree, I didn't mean to make comparisons about the actual disease, rather the way in which they are handled by the authorities. These measures may not necessarily reduce the spread and measures, if they don't work, are kept in place at unfair expense whilst other practises continue unchecked. |
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| cab |
While I agree that there are failings in how such disease outbreaks are handled, I'd say that the varying pathogenicity and epidemiology are sufficient to justify the stance that the different pathogens mentioned need to be handled very differently by the authorities. If anything, I'd criticise contingencies put in place where they don't really differentiate enough between diseases. |
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| Rob R |
They're not handled that differently though, both were handled terribly and we had to bear the cost of their decisions. The way legislation is going we are going to have to bear even more of the cost of their cock-ups. You don't mind complying when the cost to you makes a positive difference to the wider community but when you are paying and other people are continuing to do things that do spread the disease then you can't trust those in power to do the right thing. I am all for cost-sharing, but if that means having less control and having to pay then it cannot be justified. If they were paying I would not mind so much. | ||||||||
| mihto |
Quote on quote on quote... Ixy, you ask how many have TB now. Answer: a lot. This is one of the great emerging diseases in large parts of the world. The frightening thing is the antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains. Eating cattle with TB infection. If meat is well cooked you will not become infected. Many parts of cattle is eaten undercooked, however. According to DEFRA TB is not transmitted through meat. Well, well...... Ros asks if there are TB carriers like badgers and foxes. Answer: badgers live in the south-eastern part of the country. Foxes are all over. So far we have no reports of TB in these species. Again, we consider the disease eradicated here. Our measures are draconian, by your standards. I mentioned your problems at lunch today and people did not believe me when I told about your slaughter/use of meat. Colour it green wrote: indeed, but it is so widespread here in the UK.. we cannot take the same approach. Totally agree with you. I'm having trouble with the British risk assessment, however. TB is often a slow disease. Conquering TB was one of the great achievements in the health sector in the 20th century. I'll shut up for now and follow the discussion. It is very interesting. |
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| ros |
Conquering TB was done mainly by BCG vaccination wasn't it?
A vaccine that has more or less been dropped in the UK (why?) - although it's now used again in certain parts as TB has spread from the developing world |
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| wellington womble |
Immigration and heroin use have put it on the increase again. Might be why it's more topical? |
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| Rob R |
Exactly my point; it's all those immigrant farmers
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| Ixy |
No, the answer is a lot less than there were, in countries that pasteurise their milk. And the remaining cases will be in people who did not get it from milk (or if they did they knew when they drank/ate the unpasteurised milk they were taking a risk, like myself). Antiobiotic resistant strains like the very scary ones in russian prisons are caused by misuse of antibiotics. This can (and does IMO) happen in dairy farming of course, but that's why we pasteurise milk. Can't be blaming cows or farmers for that. |
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| mihto |
Ixy, we do not disagree in principle.
I just want to point out that the TB epidemiology is extremely complex. Any disease gets a much heavier impact once it becomes a zoonosis, that is transmition between humans and animals. Milk used to be the great vehicle for the bacteria to spread. Then the disease was all but eradicated in cattle in many countries. Together with x-rays of the lungs, vaccination, antibiotics and pasteurisation of milk the disease was brought to its knees in most of Europe. Today this has changed. AIDS is now the huge killer in part of the world because this disease lets TB go on a rampage. With British cattle reinfected the fight against TB has taken a huge step backwards. Nobody is blaming the farmers; they are but a small part in a world-wide return of a very scary disease. Some of the old weapons in our arsenal should now be sharpened. We can combat this disease if we attack on many fronts. The zoonosis part just makes the war more prolonged and the cost so much higher. |
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| Ixy |
I think in this country we have the emphasis on the wrong places - keeping the spotlight on the badger debate stops us blaming the government for not getting their cash out and tackling it properly. | ||||||||
| welshboy454 |
A cousin of mine had his dairyfarm buildings covered by cctv and nightvision funded by the govt as part of the research into tb and the interaction between cattle and badgers/other wildlife.
They gave him a copy of the tape which showed that after dark badgers freely mingled with the cattle in the cubicles and feed area. This is the area of concern -nose to nose -contact in the feeding area. The report can be read here http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/documents/husbandry_background.pdf |
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| Rob R |
mihto, may I introduce you to the British Government & DEFRA? Blame is something we can take, the cost of their cock-ups, we can't. |
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| Gervase |
I was talking about this today with a vet and a farmer as we struggled with a pile of Edwardian farm machinery. The consensus was that the badger population has exploded in the past five years or so, and so has the incidence of TB among badgers. Some 90 per cent of roadside badger corpses around here test positive for TB.
As a result of that population explosion, a heck of a lot of setts have been seeing a boom in young males. This leads to fighting (which causes sepsis, bleeding and shedding of TB bacilli around the sett) and also forces males to migrate to new territories, covering several hundred acres in their search. The badgers' urine contaminates the grass wherever it goes, and thus is passed to cattle. As for the solution, neither the farmer nor the vet had one, other than to control the population as with deer to stop over-population and enforced migration. Then someone said, "There's no bloody TB in Scotland," and we were all stumped. |
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| welshboy454 |
My farming neighbour has no tb and he thinks the badgers without tb tend to keep the area/setts protected from migration of sick badgers.
He says that when a badger becomes ill with tb the rest eject him from the sett so he has to migrate to fresh ground- haven't seen or read any evidence of this though. |
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| Dr Rob |
There's a conference 'Saying ''no'' to the badger cull' at the Welsh Wildlife Centre, Cilgerran, nr Cardigan on Thursday 19th December 2-4pm. It's chaired by Iolo Williams and other speakers include Dr Dan Foreman of Swansea University and Sarah Kessell, CE of the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales.
Hope to see some of you there. |