Badger Cull

[fifthcolumn]

In nature, the wheat that was available was a far cry from today's hybrids, therefore the cattle would not even have access to it.

Where is the food for the 100million sorced from? I doubt it is all grown in the US, and if it is, it is part of the destruction of the topsoil (that applies whereever it is grown). Pasture feeding is less of an environmental load, and the bison could look after themselves for winter food.

It seems to me that in your worldview the US is some desolate polluted wasteland. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[woodburner]

Where have I said it's a desolate polluted wasteland? Perhaps yu should open your eyes. Everywhere mono-crop agriculture is practised the soil becomes degraded with chemical loading, and only grows the amount crops because of fertilisers that are added.

Try http://www.cbgnetwork.org/4.html

[emordnilap]

A few facts and figures in this article.

Why is it that efforts to control bTB in cattle always seem to be headed by badgers? Since the first TB-infected badger was found in Gloucestershire in 1971, badgers have served as a convenient scapegoat for an industry that perhaps does not want to look at its own practices. Farmers have taken on the belief, not the fact, that badgers, more than other factors, are responsible.

For over 40 years badgers have been presented as the villain of the piece, the source of the disease. Yes, badgers can be infected by bovine TB as the Badger road traffic accident survey demonstrated. But few infected badgers are also infectious, capable of passing on the disease.

Nor are badgers the only 'wildlife reservoir' so freely talked about by farmers' unions and politicians. Many other animals, wild, feral and domestic, can be infected, and of all farm animals only cattle are routinely tested. But badgers alone are blamed for giving TB to cattle, and few ask where their bTB came from.

The year-long Badger / Cattle Proximity study placed cameras in randomly selected farms. The cameras showed badgers avoiding cattle housing in the yards while investigating feed stores and grain silos. On 64% of the farms badgers visited infrequently, and two had no visits recorded.

One farm accounted for nearly 39% of all badger visits, and a single badger was responsible for over 90% of that. Foxes, rats and cats, all of which can carry bTB, were also recorded visiting. Add that in and badgers turned out to be responsible for under 4% of farmyard visits.

The 'proximity' collars used on both cattle and badgers out in the field recorded how closely the two species interacted. Badger-to-badger and cattle-to-cattle interactions were studied as well as badger-to-cattle encounters. Out of a total 439,776 recorded interactions, absolutely none showed badgers coming within 2 metres of cattle, the maximum distance at which they could infect another animal by coughing or sneezing.

Similar recent studies in County Wicklow and Cornwall demonstrated that badgers avoid cattle, even while still blaming badgers. But Dr Paul Benham of Reading University was researching the known 'mutual avoidance' of badgers and cattle in the 1980s. When will that message be heard?

While the study talked much about the "potential" for badgers to contaminate feed supplies it does not ask a very simple question: why would foraging badgers urinate and defecate on the food they are seeking?

[vtsnowedin]

A few facts and figures in this article.

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While the study talked much about the "potential" for badgers to contaminate feed supplies it does not ask a very simple question: why would foraging badgers urinate and defecate on the food they are seeking?

Apparently the author has never so much as walked a dog or seen a cow graze.
A badger will make deposits anywhere he happens to be when the need arrives and if he is standing in grass the grass gets wet. The cow following along sweeping in grass with their tongue eats the grass "as is" including anything that is on it. If BTB is transmissible through feces and urine then you don't want any sick animals in your pasture ever.

[emordnilap]

Part of the point of the article is that badgers have been unfairly targeted, with which I agree.

I would also add that disease is what you should expect with a wholesale focus on mono-species "farming".

Endless government-funded research trying again and again to prove that only badgers are to blame is a waste of money. Surely that money would be better invested in funding good biosecurity measures?

If BTB is transmissible through feces and urine then you don't want any sick animals in your pasture ever.

Good luck keeping out/culling the TB-infected rats then. Or cats. Deer can transmit TB too. These three species shit and piss as the need arises. But...

A badger will make deposits anywhere he happens to be when the need arrives

Wrong on the 'deposit' front. Badgers are one of the only species (along with us) who make a specific latrine for faeces. Couple this with the fact that badgers avoid pasture and farm buildings with cattle (satellite tracking proves this).

For some reason, evolution has made badgers avoid cattle. Could it be because badgers don't want to catch TB off them?

[emordnilap]

The news that the Kimblewick Hunt's hounds are infested with bovine TB has come as a shock to farmers and hunters.

But it's no surprise to campaigners against the badger cull, who have long complained about poor farm hygiene and the feeding by hunts of disease-ridden 'fallen cattle' carcasses to foxhounds - never mind that the cattle are likely bTB carriers!

Soource

[woodburner]

They killed 25 infected hounds that could have been treated and cured, as could the cattle that had TB. This will never be done however, as it conflicts with the mainstream medical belief system, which is largely evidence free. Anyone who would try to use the cure would have their career terminated. Vaccines are not the cure, in case you thought they were.

Never believe that health authorities have the slightest interest in your health. They are interested only in money.

[johnhemming2]

the mainstream medical belief system, which is largely evidence free.

Although I am sympathetic with your general point. I don't think it is fair to make this assertion. At times the political process and reality go in different directions, but medical processes are substantially evidence driven.

[woodburner]

If you say so. I suggest that nowadays much of the data has been obtained from at least questionable studies, and if you look at vaccines, no studies at all, merely untested hypotheses.

[Little John]

In the end, all things that are living will die. And disease is a part of that process. To some extent, we humans intervene in that process with ourselves. But, nonetheless, we go the same way as everything else.

In a healthy ecosystem, there is lots of variety and so disease only ever gets a dangerous, disproportionate hold in some parts of that ecosystem for limited periods of time.

The problems arise when we drive out all variety in an ecosystem for reasons that have nothing to do with the efficiency of living systems and everything to do with efficiency of profit margins.

In other words, farming is the problem and it always has been.

[emordnilap]

The problems arise when we drive out all variety in an ecosystem for reasons that have nothing to do with the efficiency of living systems and everything to do with efficiency of profit margins.

In other words, farming is the problem and it always has been.

110% yes.

[emordnilap]

Another bit of balance here:

Because the badger is popularly considered to be spreading bovine TB, scientists are mostly funded to investigate its contribution to the disease.

TB can survive outside an animal host – in the soil, say – for more than a year. And the disease has been detected in everything from earthworms to cats, sheep, pigs, alpacas and deer

Source

[fuzzy]

They could vaccinate against f+m, TB etc, but the arabs [that May is grovelling to today] would not want our live meat exports, on ships of hell, to be butchered in the ME.

[woodburner]

Since vaccinations for humans have been a huge fraud, there is every reason to believe that the same is true for other animals. Nutrition is the best way to ensure disease resistance, not injecting with neuro-toxins and mutant pathogens.

I wonder if British badgers do this?

[emordnilap]

Foxhound cull? Please cull the users while you're at it.

in the large area hunted over by the Kimblewick Hunt there are up to 90 active outbreaks of bTB in cattle. Well over half - 55 - of those outbreaks have occurred since bTB was found in the Kimblewick pack.