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MR PAICE SUFFERS A HAMLET MOMENT

18 Feb 2011
PRESS RELEASE from The Badger Trust:
To cull or not to cull – not yet anyway . . .

Mr Paice has told farmers that no decision about killing badgers will be announced before May. Here are some of the predicaments behind Mr Paice, the Agriculture Minister and the Coalition Government’s decision to postpone any culling announcement until after local elections in May

There is clear evidence from Government statistics that Bovine TB is declining sharply in both England and Wales over the last two years without any need for a badger cull. Happily, recent cattle control methods are taking effect as predicted by the ISG. (If the previous government had allowed badgers to be killed the beef and dairy industries would now be claiming culling as a reason for the decline.) Culling badgers would leave Welsh taxpayers or English farmers with a sky high bill but little benefit in terms of TB reduction; it might well increase TB. Rural community relations would suffer as a result of the divisive proposals. Although the consultation document sought to justify badger culling the majority of respondees, including landowners, opposed culling. Mr Paice may have predetermined the consultation outcome by saying he is ‘personally committed’ to culling, whilst claiming to maintain an open mind The latest DEFRA evidence on badger vaccination is very positive;[i]

Recent statistics for England have now shown a steady decline[ii] for two consecutive years from the high point of 38,973 cattle slaughtered.to an (estimated) 33,000 in 2010 – without killing badgers or any other wildlife.

In Wales, there was an even sharper fall in the very area where the disease is at its worst and where culling is proposed. In Dyfed, 36% fewer cattle have been slaughtered over two years at a saving for the taxpayer of about £6.5 million in compensation[iii]. [Despite widespread opposition and a Court of Appeal judgment declaring its culling plans unlawful on all counts, the Welsh Assembly Government is trying to reintroduce its plans to kill badgers as part of its bTB control measures[iv].]

Effective cattle measures during the last ten years – more rigorous TB testing, a moratorium on overdue tests and enforced testing before cattle movements – were introduced (bTB infection levels rose steeply after the BSE and foot and mouth epidemics disrupted controls).

Westminster and Cardiff have been facing a concerted campaign from the cattle and dairy industries to promote culling as a cure-all. This flies in the face of all the science and seeks to promote long-held prejudice and myth about the role of wildlife in the maintenance and transmission of bTB.

Patricia Hayden, Vice Chairman of the Badger Trust, said: “Both Governments’ consultation documents were time consuming and expensive exercises in selecting convenient statistics and statements. They presented “facts” mostly out of context. They only offered comfort to bigotry and support for Ministers seeking to appease a belligerent and influential lobby. The NFU went so far as to threaten not to cooperate with cattle controls in its members’ interests unless the “wildlife issue” was addressed.

“There can be no comfort in the long run for those whose interests these misconceived proposals are supposed to support”, she said. “The cattle industry has tried to play politics only to find that the politicians are far more nimble and crafty than they are”.

Mrs Hayden spelt out what the organisations have been landed with in England:

The industry would be faced with the near-impossible task of killing at least 70 percent of badgers in at least 70 percent of areas selected – areas which need to be up to 18 miles in diameter containing as many as 150 farms. The industry would have to organise killings in England simultaneously over all those farms and other countryside for at best a marginal benefit. The industry would have to face public concern about the danger of shooting running badgers at night in England where there are few safe wildernesses. The industry would be obliged to pay for this futile operation in England over years and years, and observe demanding standards throughout; the Coalition would pay only for policing the killing fields.

“The farmers have been ill-served by their representatives so far”, she said. “If killing badgers goes ahead the politicians would have evaded expense and would be standing by while a clamorous and misguided industry shoots itself in the foot”.

[i] See Chambers, M.A. et al: Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination reduces the severity and progression of tuberculosis in badgers (2010), http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rspb.2010.1953. and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11875056

[ii] An extrapolation from Defra’s January to September 2010 statistics.

[iii] Defra County Animal Statistics (GB total).

[iv] Even though no announcement has been made in the Welsh Assembly and there is no legal authority for a cull, landowners are being asked to let sett surveys take place on their land.

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[1] See Chambers, M.A. et al: Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination reduces the severity and progression of tuberculosis in badgers (2010), http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rspb.2010.1953. and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11875056

[1] An extrapolation from Defra’s January to September 2010 statistics.

[1] Defra County Animal Statistics (GB total).

[1] Even though no announcement has been made in the Welsh Assembly and there is no legal authority for a cull, landowners are being asked to let sett surveys take place on their land.

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