News
Staff Member
A comprehensive Strategy to achieve TB free status in England by 2038 has been announced by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson today.
This includes continuing to strengthen cattle movement controls, a grant-funded scheme for badger vaccination projects in the ‘edge area’ at the frontier of the disease, and improvements to the four-year badger cull pilots in Somerset and Gloucestershire.
Following recommendations from the Independent Expert Panel that assessed the badger cull pilots last year, a series of changes will be made to improve the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of culling. These changes will be monitored to assess their impact before further decisions are taken on more badger cull licences next year.
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson:
The four year culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire are pilots and we always expected to learn lessons from them.
It is crucial we get this right. That is why we are taking a responsible approach, accepting recommendations from experts to make the pilots better.
Doing nothing is not an option. Bovine TB is a terrible disease which is devastating our cattle and dairy industries and causing misery for many people in rural communities. We need to do everything we can, as set out in our Strategy, to make England TB free.
Improvements to the pilot culls will include more extensive training for contractors carrying out the cull, better planning by the licensed companies to ensure culling is spread evenly across all land available and better data collection to assess progress. The changes being introduced will help increase the effectiveness of the culls by removing more badgers in a safe and humane way.
There will be a trial of a new service in Somerset and Gloucestershire to provide farmers with bespoke advice on how to better protect their farms from disease. This service will be available to all farmers within the licensed cull areas.
Addressing bovine TB in badgers in high risk areas is just one part of a new long-term strategy to eradicate bovine TB from England. The strategy demonstrates the wide range of tools we will use to achieve TB free status by 2038. This includes:
Offering grant funding for private badger vaccination projects in the edge areas aiming to increase TB immunity in uninfected badgers and reduce the spread of the disease. Defra will provide match-funding for successful applicants;
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plans-to-eradicate-bovine-tb-in-england-unveiled
With an alternative banner headline The Guardian portrays Owen Paterson as having to abandon the cull programme:
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...ancels-national-roll-out-cattle-tb?CMP=twt_gu
"Plans to roll out the controversial badger cull pilots nationwide across England have been dropped by Owen Paterson, after a damning independent report found the shoots had not been sufficiently effective or humane.
The two pilot culls, in Gloucestershire and Somerset, will continue with improvements recommended by the independent expert panel (IEP), including more and better trained marksmen. But plans to start new badger culls in 10 other areas have been cancelled, the environment secretary announced on Thursday, telling MPs he was taking the "responsible approach".
The culls, aimed at curbing the rise of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle, were dismissed by senior scientists as "mindless" before they started and have provoked huge public opposition since, as well as seeing ministers lose avote in the House of Commons. The night-time shoots failed to kill enough badgers in the allotted time, which scientists warned could actually see escaping badgers increase TB in cattle.
"This disease is the most pressing animal health problem in the UK," Paterson said, noting that 26,600 cattle were slaughtered in 2013 and that the disease had cost taxpayers £500m in the last decade. But he accepted that "on effectiveness … the culls did not make as much progress as we hoped." He said the cull operators had often faced a "disgraceful amount of intimidation from some of the more extreme protesters".
To improve the humaneness of the culling – the swiftness of the kill – Paterson said he accepted the IEP recommendations to "improve the accuracy and field-craft" of shooters.
Opponents of the cull have argued vaccination of badgers and cattle is a better strategy and Paterson said: "I am proposing a scheme for [badger] vaccination projects around the edge of the most badly affected parts of the country, in an attempt to create a buffer zone of TB immunity to stop the disease spreading further." He also said large-scale field trials of cattle vaccines were being designed, but said a useable vaccine was many years away.
Opponents, including the leader of a landmark decade-long trial of badger culling, have also argued that stricter testing and controls on cattle movements are the key to cutting TB. In Wales, where a planned badger cull was abandoned, the number of cattle slaughtered has fell from 11,671 in 2009 to 6,102 in 2013, a 48% drop, following more stringent testing. The number of cattle slaughtered in Great Britain,fell by 15% in 2013, following some new controls being introduced in England."
This includes continuing to strengthen cattle movement controls, a grant-funded scheme for badger vaccination projects in the ‘edge area’ at the frontier of the disease, and improvements to the four-year badger cull pilots in Somerset and Gloucestershire.
Following recommendations from the Independent Expert Panel that assessed the badger cull pilots last year, a series of changes will be made to improve the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of culling. These changes will be monitored to assess their impact before further decisions are taken on more badger cull licences next year.
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson:
The four year culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire are pilots and we always expected to learn lessons from them.
It is crucial we get this right. That is why we are taking a responsible approach, accepting recommendations from experts to make the pilots better.
Doing nothing is not an option. Bovine TB is a terrible disease which is devastating our cattle and dairy industries and causing misery for many people in rural communities. We need to do everything we can, as set out in our Strategy, to make England TB free.
Improvements to the pilot culls will include more extensive training for contractors carrying out the cull, better planning by the licensed companies to ensure culling is spread evenly across all land available and better data collection to assess progress. The changes being introduced will help increase the effectiveness of the culls by removing more badgers in a safe and humane way.
There will be a trial of a new service in Somerset and Gloucestershire to provide farmers with bespoke advice on how to better protect their farms from disease. This service will be available to all farmers within the licensed cull areas.
Addressing bovine TB in badgers in high risk areas is just one part of a new long-term strategy to eradicate bovine TB from England. The strategy demonstrates the wide range of tools we will use to achieve TB free status by 2038. This includes:
Offering grant funding for private badger vaccination projects in the edge areas aiming to increase TB immunity in uninfected badgers and reduce the spread of the disease. Defra will provide match-funding for successful applicants;
- Continuing to strengthen our cattle movement controls and testing regime to stop the disease from spreading from herd to herd;
- Improving biosecurity by helping farmers understand the disease risk of cattle they buy; and
- Continuing to invest in development of a new vaccine for cattle which could be field tested next year, and an oral badger vaccine which we would look to have available for use by 2019.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plans-to-eradicate-bovine-tb-in-england-unveiled
With an alternative banner headline The Guardian portrays Owen Paterson as having to abandon the cull programme:
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...ancels-national-roll-out-cattle-tb?CMP=twt_gu
"Plans to roll out the controversial badger cull pilots nationwide across England have been dropped by Owen Paterson, after a damning independent report found the shoots had not been sufficiently effective or humane.
The two pilot culls, in Gloucestershire and Somerset, will continue with improvements recommended by the independent expert panel (IEP), including more and better trained marksmen. But plans to start new badger culls in 10 other areas have been cancelled, the environment secretary announced on Thursday, telling MPs he was taking the "responsible approach".
The culls, aimed at curbing the rise of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle, were dismissed by senior scientists as "mindless" before they started and have provoked huge public opposition since, as well as seeing ministers lose avote in the House of Commons. The night-time shoots failed to kill enough badgers in the allotted time, which scientists warned could actually see escaping badgers increase TB in cattle.
"This disease is the most pressing animal health problem in the UK," Paterson said, noting that 26,600 cattle were slaughtered in 2013 and that the disease had cost taxpayers £500m in the last decade. But he accepted that "on effectiveness … the culls did not make as much progress as we hoped." He said the cull operators had often faced a "disgraceful amount of intimidation from some of the more extreme protesters".
To improve the humaneness of the culling – the swiftness of the kill – Paterson said he accepted the IEP recommendations to "improve the accuracy and field-craft" of shooters.
Opponents of the cull have argued vaccination of badgers and cattle is a better strategy and Paterson said: "I am proposing a scheme for [badger] vaccination projects around the edge of the most badly affected parts of the country, in an attempt to create a buffer zone of TB immunity to stop the disease spreading further." He also said large-scale field trials of cattle vaccines were being designed, but said a useable vaccine was many years away.
Opponents, including the leader of a landmark decade-long trial of badger culling, have also argued that stricter testing and controls on cattle movements are the key to cutting TB. In Wales, where a planned badger cull was abandoned, the number of cattle slaughtered has fell from 11,671 in 2009 to 6,102 in 2013, a 48% drop, following more stringent testing. The number of cattle slaughtered in Great Britain,fell by 15% in 2013, following some new controls being introduced in England."
We have been a totally closed herd from 2001 and before that very rarely bought in stock, we have been shut down with TB on different occasions but this has been the odd animal. Since last autumn we have lost animals at each test with big reactions and about half each time have lesions. No contact with other cattle and some of the ones that have had lesions have never been outside