- Location
- Somerset
Copied this from Facebook
What we had - and what we threw away, poignantly shown by this chart. In 1986 the Min of Ag was still culling badgers round TB breakdowns in the hotspots of the South West. Ten years later, and all culling had stopped, thanks to the Protection of Badgers Act of 1992. And by 1996, it's plain to see what's happening. Sick badgers booted out of their home territories, coughing their way onto pastures new, piddling TB bacilli onto these pastures, fighting for territory with healthy badgers and infecting them. And infecting any bovine unlucky enough to ingest TB from these badger contaminated pastures.
Another ten years on, post F&M, the situation has deteriorated drastically. But the epicenter is still the SW of England. And when you look at the 2010 map, it's even clearer. Yes, there are scattered incidents across England, identified and cleared up by routine cattle testing. But the east and north of England are still virtually TB free, and are LR areas to this day.
So does no-one move cattle in the East of England, or Scotland, come to that? Are the farmers there doing anything different to farmers in the West?
In your mind's eye, overlay the motorways and conurbations of England on that last map. TB is largely contained to the West of the M1 and the south of the huge built up area of Liverpool - Manchester. This is no problem to the wagon driver taking a lorry load of heifers to Yorkshire or Edinburgh.
But it's an insurmountable barrier to that tuberculous badger, which will have achieved flatpack status long before arriving in the cattle pasture of Yorkshire and bey
What we had - and what we threw away, poignantly shown by this chart. In 1986 the Min of Ag was still culling badgers round TB breakdowns in the hotspots of the South West. Ten years later, and all culling had stopped, thanks to the Protection of Badgers Act of 1992. And by 1996, it's plain to see what's happening. Sick badgers booted out of their home territories, coughing their way onto pastures new, piddling TB bacilli onto these pastures, fighting for territory with healthy badgers and infecting them. And infecting any bovine unlucky enough to ingest TB from these badger contaminated pastures.
Another ten years on, post F&M, the situation has deteriorated drastically. But the epicenter is still the SW of England. And when you look at the 2010 map, it's even clearer. Yes, there are scattered incidents across England, identified and cleared up by routine cattle testing. But the east and north of England are still virtually TB free, and are LR areas to this day.
So does no-one move cattle in the East of England, or Scotland, come to that? Are the farmers there doing anything different to farmers in the West?
In your mind's eye, overlay the motorways and conurbations of England on that last map. TB is largely contained to the West of the M1 and the south of the huge built up area of Liverpool - Manchester. This is no problem to the wagon driver taking a lorry load of heifers to Yorkshire or Edinburgh.
But it's an insurmountable barrier to that tuberculous badger, which will have achieved flatpack status long before arriving in the cattle pasture of Yorkshire and bey
