The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... areas.html

"Badger cull to start in pilot areas.
Tens of thousands of badgers could be killed every year under plans to allow farmers to shoot the protected animals in England."

IMO this is utter lunacy. When they have shot all the badgers and the cows are still getting sick, then what will they do?
This programme involves shooting healthy badgers as well. Typical humans eh.

I have to be honest, that I've been trying to ignore this news - as it p*** me off so much :evil:

If you have a disease problem, you have to tackle all sources of infection. In the case of TB this is cattle and badgers (and deer to a lesser extent). Thousands of cattle are being killed every year without dealing with the reservoir in the badger population. I can tell you about many farms which are closed herds, ie they never buy in cattle onto their farm, yet the cattle get TB, which must have come from another source, the badger. Besides, how does a badger with TB die? Slowly and painfully. Farmers do not want to wipe out badgers, but want to control their numbers. Many of the cattle killed under suspicion of TB do not in fact have it, an unneccessary waste. As vaccines are many years away, killing badgers is the best option.

Is there any doubt that badgers do carry and spread TB? I can remember this being discussed by my Great Aunt and Uncle who were dairy farmers in mid Wales and that was probably 45 years ago. Even then they were in favour of a badger cull.

I do not agree killing badgers is the best option. As I said healthy badgers will be culled as well.

I do agree that the loss of cattle on a yearly basis is huge, did I read £90million somewhere?

The cost of running this killing program is nowhere near the cost of the loss of cattle.

The vaccine is there, not that effective, it is there though, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not and the scientists can't figure out why. It cost a lot to roll a vaccination program out though and I reckon a lot more than the killing program.

Isn't that why this decision was taken, it is cheaper to kill?

ovenpaa wrote:Is there any doubt that badgers do carry and spread TB? I can remember this being discussed by my Great Aunt and Uncle who were dairy farmers in mid Wales and that was probably 45 years ago. Even then they were in favour of a badger cull.

There is no doubt that badgers do contract and carry TB. And I conceed that some (especially in 'hot spots') badgers will have to be destroyed - farmers livelihoods need protecting. But other options like cures and inocculations should be given a genuine attempt - It should also be professionals (with animal welfare at heart) that undertake the first attempts for controling badger TB.

However to give licences to farmers to shoot badgers is, as Christel says, UTTER LUNACY :G

Dougan wrote:However to give licences to farmers to shoot badgers is, as Christel says, UTTER LUNACY :G

What's to say that farmers are not already killing badgers? Licensing them decriminalises them from carrying out what they no doubt deem necessary for their own animals welfare.

Likewise, there seems to have been an explosion in the badger population, probably to do wth their protected status. I've rbably seen more badger road kil than hedgehogs over the last few years and I once read that the "road kill" factor is a reliable indication of how species is doing....

Driving into Southend one morning I must have counted 20+ dead badgers by the road. Certainly an indication that they are around in significant numbers in some areas.

I reckon the cull will be blocked in the courts and in the fields.

Edit.
IMHO, farmers should be allowed to kill badgers on their land...humanely.

:|

I don't know enough about it to make any kind of informed decision to be honest. However in 11 years of driving i'd only seen 1 ran down badger the whole time, but last year i saw 2 and on the way to the Lakes last month i saw 4 - almost got crashed into by a loon trying to avoid running over the already dead badger :x