Call to kill the cull

I am horrified that thousands of badgers are now being killed in two areas on England in a terminally misguided attempt to control TB in cattle. It is a needless massacre driven by the NFU and politicians. DEFRA’s own figures show that the incidence of bTB in cattle in March 2013 was 3.6%, compared to 3.9% a year ago, and a drop from 4.7% in December 2012. In the last six years, the figure has averaged at around 5%. This drop follows new legislation brought in on January 1st 2013 to improve bTB testing and cattle movement procedures. Source: http://www.farmingmonthly.co.uk/livestock/animal-health/7139-tb-rates-in-cattle-hit-lowest-level-for-six-years/

Not only are bTB levels in cattle falling but the science is very much against a cull too. In fact, because of a process called perturbation -terrified badgers fleeing their territories - there is a risk that infected badgers (which is a very low % of the population anyway) will spread the infection further afield. The qualified consensus - reached by the 10 year, £49 million study by Lord Krebs and the Independent Scientific Group - is that “badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the control of bovine TB in Britain.”

Persecuting badgers for being the main vector for spreading bTB makes as much sense as persecuting black cats for spreading bad luck and witchcraft. It is time that the badger stopped being a scapegoat for the failings of farming.

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Owen Paterson and the NFU can attempt to demonise English wildlife all they want, but the intensification of farming practices and the huge increase in cattle movements are the real reasons for the spread of this disease. Around 14 million cattle are moved across the UK each year - this number has quadrupled since 1999.

Dairy herd sizes have more than doubled since the 1970s - when bovine TB was at its lowest. There is a direct correlation between larger herd sizes and the spread of disease. The rush to intensify animal agriculture has led to this disastrous situation. Dairy cows suffer the dual burden of pregnancy and lactation during much of their lives. Their immune systems are shot to pieces and they are physically exhausted and killed at a fraction of their natural lifespan. Add to this unreliable bovine TB testing that is inaccurate in one-third of cases and you start to see the real causes of the problem, as DEFRA’s own statistics show.

Jane Quarrington

Perrymans Lane, Burwash.

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