Brian May- badgers

[devonbeef]

Above on a mission still to try to prove badgers are not the carrier of tb onto Livestock farms,9pm bbc 2 a documentary been made by him and bbc.
Article in online main bbc news, with him as usual putting all the blame on farms and saying our poor farm hygiene is all to blame

Queen's Brian May leads bovine TB research to end badger culling

The Queen guitarist has led a 10-year study to combat bovine TB spread and help end badger culling.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[slackjawedyokel]

It’s the BBC. I’m sure there will be plenty of balance in there…

 

[Tubbylew]

Empty vessels make the most noise...

 

[Badshot]

He's right of course, but he won't like the answer.
Part of the historic hygiene battle would have included sorting out the numbers of badgers.
There's far too many of them.

Above on a mission still to try to prove badgers are not the carrier of tb onto Livestock farms,9pm bbc 2 a documentary been made by him and bbc.
Article in online main bbc news, with him as usual putting all the blame on farms and saying our poor farm hygiene is all to blame.

 

[slackjawedyokel]

Should’ve stuck to this, at which he was highly competent:

 

[Chris F]

See on facebook the contributors highlighting their input im not sure how balanced this will be. Anyone know if AHDB or NFU got a chance to be part of the “debate”?

 

[livestock 1]

Amazing how people in cities with no knowledge of the countryside are making up the rules for us.
Look in any city centre and that should be enough evidence for us not to be taking any advice from them

 

[BrianV]

What they seem to miss is that cattle during the warmer summer months when in our case TB is most likely to occur like nothing better than to rub their noses into any area of bare soil, funny enough this is often the very same sight of badger’s favourite toilets, you don’t need to be a genius to put two & two together.
Talk of vaccination of badgers is a fantasy as to be effective you would have to vaccinate every single badger in an area & do the same to every new born every year following otherwise those not vaccinated would catch it from deer or unvaccinated badgers just perpetuating the disease, there is no silver bullet now that it’s been allowed to spread far & wide, cattle catch it from wildlife so unfortunately until a cattle vaccination is available despite what May might pretend in the real world wildlife culling is the only way to achieve some kind of lid on it.

 

[slackjawedyokel]

What they seem to miss is that cattle during the warmer summer months when in our case TB is most likely to occur like nothing better than to rub their noses into any area of bare soil, funny enough this is often the very same sight of badger’s favourite toilets, you don’t need to be a genius to put two & two together.
Talk of vaccination of badgers is a fantasy as to be effective you would have to vaccinate every single badger in an area & do the same to every new born every year following otherwise those not vaccinated would catch it from deer or unvaccinated badgers just perpetuating the disease, there is no silver bullet now that it’s been allowed to spread far & wide, cattle catch it from wildlife so unfortunately until a cattle vaccination is available despite what May might pretend in the real world wildlife culling is the only way to achieve some kind of lid on it.

I suspect that these sorts of people probably already know that badger vaccination etc is an expensive non-starter, but by championing it and trying to force the industry to adopt it, they are economically holeing the industry below the waterline.
Much better to be ‘plant based’ and allow the countryside to run to scrub

 

[M-J-G]

And some people still pay a licence fee to this corrupt shower.

 

[matthew]

"143. THE HUMAN PROBLEM:
Even when they are adamant in rejecting to what any informed scientist would be irrefutable fact, the groups most hostile to MAFF's policy* are insistent that they are not 'crackpot extremists'.
The fact is that opposition costs protesters little or nothing - any price that has to be paid is exacted in time by officials, in pounds and pence by the farmer and the taxpayer, and in the health of the badger.
Moreover, concern for the animal - whether healthy or tuberculous - is matched by what could be regarded as a cynical attitude to amtters which concern public health, as well as a general belief that whatever government officials do is necessarily misguided."

Lord Zuckerman
President Zoological Society of London.
Report into Badgers & TB
1980.

* MAFF policy:

A Picture tells 1000 words.

As the dead-tree media line up with badgery stories, we thought we'd do something slightly different. We will track the disgraceful decline...

bovinetb.blogspot.com

 

[Paddington]

I went to a talk by someone taking part in a vaccination program. They didn't know if the badgers they caught had Tb, or had been vaccinated before. They used stock marker ("special paint") to show any which had been caught on previous nights. They anticipated the vaccination program would go on for many years, but were having to pause it as supplies of the BCG vaccine from Denmark had run out. Couldn't understand why farmers objected to paying " a few thousand" to fencing badgers out or keeping cattle in all year round.

 

[devonbeef]

I went to a talk by someone taking part in a vaccination program. They didn't know if the badgers they caught had Tb, or had been vaccinated before. They used stock marker ("special paint") to show any which had been caught on previous nights. They anticipated the vaccination program would go on for many years, but were having to pause it as supplies of the BCG vaccine from Denmark had run out. Couldn't understand why farmers objected to paying " a few thousand" to fencing badgers out or keeping cattle in all year round.

We they not only last week grumbling about mega farms and housing all year around, ,dum wits Don,t know what they want

 

[matthew]

I went to a talk by someone taking part in a vaccination program. They didn't know if the badgers they caught had Tb, or had been vaccinated before. They used stock marker ("special paint") to show any which had been caught on previous nights. They anticipated the vaccination program would go on for many years, but were having to pause it as supplies of the BCG vaccine from Denmark had run out. Couldn't understand why farmers objected to paying " a few thousand" to fencing badgers out or keeping cattle in all year round.

Our livestock farms are somewhat larger than Deathrow's window boxes.
To fence badgers out of pasture requires fencing sunk deep in the ground, and turned under. The badger pound at weybridge it is sunk some 15' I'm told. And don't forget the gateways. Or public footpaths. This bloody daft idea has been circulating amonst the chatterati for twenty years at least.

Nothing if not persistent

We are grateful to the South West TB advisory group, for sight of a video clip, taken at Bicton college, of their attempts to exclude bad...

bovinetb.blogspot.com

And some larger milk prodicers who have kept cattle housed 24/7 have had to find a new milk buyer.
Abattoir entry forms for prime West country beef, stipulate grazing for at least 6 months.

 

[Northernlights]

Some balance BBC i player Landward Episode 11 5.29 minutes .Night camera footage of badger stealing eggs from ground nest

 

[Mickeydredd]

Couldn't understand why farmers objected to paying " a few thousand" to fencing badgers out or keeping cattle in all year round.

I think they might need to spend a bit more to fund a "Trump" wall to keep them out.....

New badger video highlights ineffectiveness of RSPB's electric 'predator fences'

A new video has emerged of a badger climbing a fence, reinforcing the ineffectiveness of the RSPB's electric predator fences. The charity has claimed it uses electric fences to protect birds on its reserves from predators. The problem is though these fences don't work. In May it was reported...

www.c4pmc.co.uk

 

[som farmer]

in a cull zone.
marked increase in hare population, as there is in ground nesting birds. The clincher though, return of hedge hogs, first in 40 yrs.

perhaps we should start a movement to 'save' mrs tiddlywinks

 

[gone up the hill]

I went to a talk by someone taking part in a vaccination program. They didn't know if the badgers they caught had Tb, or had been vaccinated before. They used stock marker ("special paint") to show any which had been caught on previous nights. They anticipated the vaccination program would go on for many years, but were having to pause it as supplies of the BCG vaccine from Denmark had run out. Couldn't understand why farmers objected to paying " a few thousand" to fencing badgers out or keeping cattle in all year round.

Last figures for the trial badger vaccination in Wales pre covid ( so would cost a lot more now ) put the average cost per badger at something like £3300 a year!

Also it turned out they were trapping and vaccinating some badgers several times in a short window, one badger it turned out had been jabbed about 17 times in one month!

Fencing badgers out of cattle fields is totally unworkable and would cost farms 1000s of thousands of ££s to do even if you did not have the issues of footpaths/ rights of way/ bridges over rivers/ fields which you are not allowed by law to fence etc etc.

NFU/ AHDB should have got an injunction against this programme tonight untill all of Mays claims had been fact checked and proved by science to be correct.

 

[jondear]

Isn't Dick sibley a maverick trying to make a name for himself !Latching on to this celebrity for his own gain .I've heard well established vets calling him out .

 

[flowerpot]

I thought the research shows that there is an on-going reduction in TB in cattle where there is badger culling.