Don't pile blame on badgers

Other animals as well as badgers visit farms and grazing pastures, including birds. They could be vectors or reservoirs of diseases such as TB, foot and mouth, bluetongue disease. Biting insects could be vectors.

After we have wiped out badgers, are we going to pursue these other animals to the edge of extinction too?

TB is not only carried by animals, it could be carried on the wind in spore form, it could be carried and spread by humans or birds to other farms.

Apparently TB can survive in soil for a number of months. Dried soil carried by the wind could re-disperse TB.

Housing development has seen the digging up, removal and re-deposition of a lot of soil in recent years and we have also had a great flood, perhaps these are factors in the increase incidences and spread of bovine TB.

Are immigrants vectors of foreign strains of TB affecting humans and cattle to which we have no immunity? Another bovine TB factor may be the size of farm and number of animals kept in close proximity.

Large farms, large fields, like large hospitals seem less healthy places for their occupants, than their smaller counterparts.

The strongest defence against any disease for humans, cattle and all animals is a good diet, clean air and water, adequate rest and exercise, good living conditions and environment which is not overcrowded and as free from man made chemicals as possible.

Leave our badgers alone.

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