Minister defends badgers decision
Saturday 9th May 2009, 11:30AM BST.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has defended his decision not to order a badger cull to tackle the spread of bovine TB which has savaged the livestock of farmers across Shropshire.
He told the Shropshire Star: “I went with the science. We have tried culling – that’s what the Krebs trial did.
“The evidence was clear – if you cull reactively you make it worse. If you go for a pro-active cull you can benefit in the area where you are culling but create problems on the outside.
“I recognise that it was not a popular decision and that’s why I put a considerable additional amount of money into vaccine research.”
A pilot badger cull has been given the go-ahead by the Welsh Assembly to take place in west Wales to try to halt bovine TB in cattle – in contrast to the policy in England.
Instead, six areas are expected to be selected for trials of a badger vaccine.
Mr Benn said he understood the frustration in the English farming community.
The disease has wiped out entire herds and shut down hundreds of farms across the country.
He said: “I am very keen that we work with the farming industry and others to see what impact it has.
“Badgers are a source of infection. I understand the frustration but we tried culling and it didn’t work.
“TB is a terrible disease. It is having a devastating effect on farmers and the industry.
“I am determined to do everything we can to deal with it,” he added.
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Hilary Benn went with the social science.
Both the EU and New Zealand strongly support an active approach to the removal of TB-infected wildlife as part of bovine TB eradication. New Zealand are close to eradicating TB having had similar levels to those in England 10 years ago. Financial costs of TB in New Zealand are also far less than in England.
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Look, these are the facts: 288 000 badgers in the UK and Bovine TB costs the tax payer £288,000 pa, year after year. While the UK population is 61m with a life expectancy of 81 years.
So that means that every UK Badger cost £278 pa, which when they live for 10 years is a life time cost to the UK Taxpayer of almost £3k!
But look at it this way, every UK Taxpayer pays £1.31 pa for a thriving Badger population and over a life-time (of the Tax Payer), that’s £106.
Is £106 too much to give for those cute fury fellas?
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David, they went with the cull idea in Eire. They killed badgers 6115 alone in 2002.
And has it worked? No. The problem is, David, that Badger removal programmes do not remove diseased badgers. They remove badgers, whether or not they have TB.
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The proportion of herds which were infected in the West of England at any time between January 2008 and September 2008 ranged from 9.8 to 28.2% depending on county.
The proportion of herds which were infected in the Irish Republic at any time between January 2008 and 5th October 2008 ranged from 2.0% to 8.6% depending on county.
These sets of figures were supplied by DEFRA and DAFF. The DEFRA data was sourced from http://www.defra.gov.uk and the DAFF data was supplied in response to an email request made to info@agriculture.gov.ie.
Matt, this suggests that badger removal in the Irish Republic has worked.
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Surely the problem is due to cows, not badgers? Let’s cull the cows and replace them with buffalo.
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Good one H, I also have a suggestion, the problem seems to be the farmers who after ruining the countryside appear to be bent on killing off all our natural wildlife, what do we do with them, make them all zookeepers because that is the only place we will see wildlife if they carry on. I wonder what problems they can find with our songbirds.
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I would suggest farnmers are doing a very good at removing badgers from the countryside even without this law being passed.
How many people have noticed a greater amount of badgers as roadkill by the roadside lately? I myself have noticed a greater amount, either badgers are playing chicken with cars OR someone is catching and killing badgers and dumping the remains on the roadside.
Which is more plausible?
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Y Mab: The increase of Badger deaths on roads, approximately 45,000 pa is a reflection of the badger population explosion, which seems to coincide with the TB explosion.
You may have noticed that there are less hedgehogs killed on the road – thats because there are less hedghogs, but noone takes up their cause.
Is it because one is spikey with fleas that get into your home via your cat and one is furry with TB that doesn’t directly effect you?
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Y Mab Darogan makes an excellent point ref. roadkill. I suppose it’s because farmers aren’t allowed to go fox hunting anymore so they’ve turned their attentions to badgers. Why do those who live in the countryside love killing its wild animals?
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Looking at these comments above some of them are quite stupid. From what I can see not many of you realise the damage and upset that is caused when a cow gets TB. We had a reactor to a regular TB test in February – this meant a total farm shutdown – we only have a small amount of cattle (about 80 beef cows) but these all needed to be sold so that we can afford to live – we are now awaiting after nearly 4 months of not being able to sell cattle for the final test in June which means if it is clear that we can sell cattle again. Also it isn’t just cattle that catch TB it is also known to have infected Deer, Dogs, Cats and Pigs. Also a pony of ours died of suspected TB in February.
It makes me quite upset that alot of people just assume that we “Countyfolk” want to go off killing animals. Yes there are people who kill badgers but they are usually townies and they do it for “FUN” and “Sport” supposedly.
Also badgers have been a real problem for quite sometime and not because of the fox hunting ban.
People need to get a life and come to a farm that has TB or has lost most of their cattle to TB then they might see just what sort of an impact it can have on people’s lives!
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Oh yes, buffalo will still catch TB as they are Bovine!
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we need to end the UK beef and dairy farmers dependance on exports – this is the heart of the problem what prevention the sensible option of vaccination for foot and mouth and now for TB – the bottom line is especially with the strong euro farmers make a killing exporting animals relative to selling them to the UK. The solution to this problem??
WE MUS BUY BRITISH! i cant see in the eu and in the modern era any coloured government restricting trade and refusing imported meat BUT i can see a big marketing and educational campaign making British shoppers change their habits and pay more for british meat.
So in conclusion – i am massively in favour of vaccinating all UK stock against these common curable deiseases – i dont support culling as the science shows it doesnt work (and because i like badgers) – we need a change in policy – we need more vaccination and we need to create a UK market for british beef – if you buy foreign cheap meat you are culpable in the whole deseise problem – we must boycott foreign meat and put our money where our mouth is and feed our selves and put health and animal welfare and the environment before profit
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