Response to the DEFRA consultation
Nov. 17th, 2010 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andygatesThe DEFRA bovine-TB-and-badgers consultation is online. Responses are invited.
The assumption that shooting free-roaming badgers will reduce population effectively without (a) peturbing populations (b) unacceptably
culling healthy badgers seems very optimistic. The costs, likewise, are very optimistic, and the assumption that farmers will competently engage in this all on their own is, in my opinion, entirely unrealistic.
The report says, "done on a sufficient scale, in a widespread, coordinated and efficient way, and over a sustained period of time, would reduce the incidence of bovine TB in cattle in high incidence areas" -- I contend that this may be the case at first but other pressures will draw farmers' attention and attention-to-detail, and the result will be an ineffective cull that picks off healthy roaming badgers and perturbs the remaining population. The perturbed badgers, of course, will in part roam into areas farmers believe 'cleared', so it only takes a few incompetent cullers to nullify the whole exercise.
In addition, the cull is a socially polarizing proposal and there is a strong chance that individual culling activities will be disrupted ("sabbed") much as hunting has been and by the same sort of demographic. The cost - financial, social, legal, political - of this resistance has not been adequately considered and it adds to the "con" side of the equation. It would disrupt culling, and may even be detrimental to the
badgers.
The focus should instead be on testing setts, culling the infected where appropriate and vaccinating the healthy. Vaccination is the best method for reducing disease in a population. Just reducing the population indiscriminately won't work.
Night shooting is dodgy; roaming untested targets are a high failure rate. I believe it will be ineffective, and that many healthy badgers
will be caught in the 'by-cull'.
The Government should engage in committed lobbying of the EU to allow vaccinated beef and cattle sales. Being able to vaccinate our livestock pool would clobber TB.
I believe that unacceptable (ie, healthy) carcasses will be disposed of quietly, passed-off as roadkill and so on, so the monitoring is likely to be ineffective.
I strongly urge the Department to reconsider the cull.
The assumption that shooting free-roaming badgers will reduce population effectively without (a) peturbing populations (b) unacceptably
culling healthy badgers seems very optimistic. The costs, likewise, are very optimistic, and the assumption that farmers will competently engage in this all on their own is, in my opinion, entirely unrealistic.
The report says, "done on a sufficient scale, in a widespread, coordinated and efficient way, and over a sustained period of time, would reduce the incidence of bovine TB in cattle in high incidence areas" -- I contend that this may be the case at first but other pressures will draw farmers' attention and attention-to-detail, and the result will be an ineffective cull that picks off healthy roaming badgers and perturbs the remaining population. The perturbed badgers, of course, will in part roam into areas farmers believe 'cleared', so it only takes a few incompetent cullers to nullify the whole exercise.
In addition, the cull is a socially polarizing proposal and there is a strong chance that individual culling activities will be disrupted ("sabbed") much as hunting has been and by the same sort of demographic. The cost - financial, social, legal, political - of this resistance has not been adequately considered and it adds to the "con" side of the equation. It would disrupt culling, and may even be detrimental to the
badgers.
The focus should instead be on testing setts, culling the infected where appropriate and vaccinating the healthy. Vaccination is the best method for reducing disease in a population. Just reducing the population indiscriminately won't work.
Night shooting is dodgy; roaming untested targets are a high failure rate. I believe it will be ineffective, and that many healthy badgers
will be caught in the 'by-cull'.
The Government should engage in committed lobbying of the EU to allow vaccinated beef and cattle sales. Being able to vaccinate our livestock pool would clobber TB.
I believe that unacceptable (ie, healthy) carcasses will be disposed of quietly, passed-off as roadkill and so on, so the monitoring is likely to be ineffective.
I strongly urge the Department to reconsider the cull.
