Just a thought but surely Bovine TB will always be a problem in bovine (aka cows) all the time we have intensive farming and no vaccine, sure badgers may contribute but having a couple of hundred cows in a shed is going to cause far more spread of the disease than any badger wondering around. Or am i missing a massive point?

those badgers should play for england! fiendishly good 🙂

All this pontificating fails to address something that was noticed by anyone who spends time in the country.. Badger numbers are down, regardless of the cull, and were significantly lower than the pre-full research estimations.. Not quite the ‘spiralling out of control numbers’ line that was being bandied about by the press and the pro-full lobby.
So what gives?

no such thing as ‘balance of nature’

not on this sceptic isle, no

In a phone call to Phil Spencer at Natural England, he acknowledged the following
1. He didn’t understand how the rules of a trial could be changed after the event – this was for Defra to explain
2. He accepted that the cost per killed Badger was approx £3000 including Police costs, but did not know who would pay for the additional policing costs if the cull was extended.
3. He understood that the Pilot Cull was to test free shooting, but confirmed that a very high proportion of Badgers killed towards the end of the cull had been cage trapped and shot. He couldn’t explain how a trial of one particular method of culling could actually use a completely different method and produce meaningful results.

you expect them to listen to the data ?

?

maybe the NFU should look closer to home with regards to Bovine TB

Moss, and his company ARP Farms Ltd, admitted failing to provide evidence for the movement of cattle between 1999 and 2009 when appearing before Lowestoft magistrates in 2011.

He had failed to register Red Poll cattle under strict regulations brought in following the outbreak of BSE in the 1990s.

During an inspection in May 2009, officers came across 93 unregistered cattle on Botany Farm. They also found that 94 “registered” cattle could not be traced and were no longer on the land.

not on this sceptic isle, no

not anywhere with life.

if we assume that the purpose is to exterminate all badgers, when TB is still there, what next? Wild Boar, they are known carriers and the FoD population borders on to the cull area. Or how about the deer, plenty of them around as well.

I know shall we just kill every ****ing wild animal?

Then once we have done that maybe we can actually consider Farm bio-security!

I know shall we just kill every ****ing wild animal?

No, just badgers, foxes, stoats, polecats, common shrews, yellow-necked mice, wood mice, field voles, grey squirrels, roe deer, red deer, fallow deer, and muntjacs, should do it.

yunki – Member

All this pontificating fails to address something that was noticed by anyone who spends time in the country.. Badger numbers are down, regardless of the cull, and were significantly lower than the pre-full research estimations.. Not quite the ‘spiralling out of control numbers’ line that was being bandied about by the press and the pro-full lobby.

Good point that.

Would have been a good point well made if my phone didn’t auto correct pre-cull to pre-full..

Up here the motorists are doing the badger culling…

http://news.sky.com/story/1152010/badgers-culled-in-illegal-gassing-trials

….

ransos – Member

The failed to kill the minimum amount specified and have probably caused TB to be spread into other areas.

If that’s not probably a failure, I don’t know what is.

FTFY – your best case is a “probably” which you haven’t exactly provided much evidence for.

FTFY – your best case is a “probably” which you haven’t exactly provided much evidence for.

The trial has not met its targets. It’s a failure.

Rich picking for the cartoonists
Steve Bell
Matt

ransos – Member
The trial has not met its targets. It’s a failure.

Do they know it’s affect on BTB spreading yet?

No.

How can they know it’s a failure?

They can’t.

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cynic-al – Member

Do they know it’s affect on BTB spreading yet?

No… And they never will, because the baselines they’re using are complete mince, so it’ll be impossible to correctly apportion any changes. Even if there is a decline in bovine tb, the study can’t be anything but a failure.

Do they know it’s affect on BTB spreading yet?

No.

How can they know it’s a failure?

So if the cull had not managed to kill one single badger then that wouldn’t represent failure to you ?

The cull had a very specific target figure. It failed to reach that target figure. The cull was a failure by definition.

what ernie said – the measure of success was whether they killed a certain percentage of the local badger population.

They haven’t, even with changing the size of the population, so the cull has failed.

HE SAID THREAD CLOSED.

THREAD REOPENED

To explain my point (sorry, I thought it was obvious): the cull may have failed, although it can clearly still succeed.

That’s not the same as the trial failing – even if it does eventually fail, if it is based on an ineffective cull.

Not that you lot are biased or dont’t want to give it a chance or anything 🙄

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