Badgers

[GRACELAND]

Hi all

a hard choice here

but i don't think a cull is the answer

and poor badger is he totally to blame ??



info here


http://www.brianmay.com/save-me/badgers/

http://www.badgertrust.org.uk/_Attachments/Resources/534_S4.pdf

[GRACELAND]

[GRACELAND]

 ??? bump

[OllieC]

Save the thousands of cows that are culled, and the taxes paid in compensation to farmers! Just 'cos badgers are cute & fluffy doesn't mean they're not a terrible pest.


Hopefully they'll start with that annoying one from the apprentice.

[Uncle_Filthster]

If there was proper evidence that proves a link then maybe a cull would be justified but there isn't and a cull will not work, just like virtually every other biological contol progamme.

I would hardly call badgers cute and cuddly either.  Badger baiters don't break their legs and jaw for nothing, their dogs would get a serious mauling if they didn't.

[pumkinlover]

From what I have heard badgers will move into an area where there has been a cull so it is pretty inefective.

I sympathise with the farmers when cows are destroyed but I wish they would vaccinate instead.

[Toadspawn]

No one has proved if badgers spread the disease to cows, or cows spread the disease to badgers. Badgers will wander several miles at night looking for food and often cross fields of cattle. Do they pick up the disease from the cattle?
There was a bullock in a Welsh religious sanctuary which had never been in the field yet it caught TB. Where did it come from as it had never been in contact with badgers?

[Uncle_Filthster]

Pandering to the greedy farmers by introducing a cull appears to be a way of winning the farmers vote more than anything else, particularly as nothing has been decided by the facts of science.

As a professional ecologist who's work is based on good science it's a tad annoying!  (I'm no fluffy bunny hugger either)

[saddad]

I thought we culled enough of them on the roads as it is?  ???

[goodlife]

I don't believe that only 2 animals would spread TB..what others are carriers of this disease?..rats, deer?...now if deer would carry it..they would not cull them..OH NO. Rich land owners would not allow that!

[Digeroo]

I do think they should prove that it is the badger that are causing the problem before trying to cull them. 

Why is it not possible to innoculate against  in both badgers and cattle.  What about
Muntjac do they spread it.  They are not indiginous and they eat my veg so I am rather keener to see the back of them.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I think it's just to keep the farmers happy; a lot of them vote Tory after all. There's very little evidence that badgers spread TB, and they reckon a cull could only cut the disease by about 12-16%. so it's a lot of effort for not very much. There's also evidence that a cull scatters badgers across the countryside, so it could just result in the disease being spread further.