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No reason to cull badgers

More power to Ian Huckson. This letter to the Independent is a valuable contribution to the debate on Bovine TB - and to the awareness of the public that a huge crime is being contemplated by this government ... the wholesale slaughter of thousands of innocent creatures. The badgers have only decent people like Mr Huckson to fight for their lives. It also advises us that not all farmers are bad. It is sad that ignorant and vindictive minority are wielding the power right now. While there are people like Ian Huckson in the world, we have hope.

Bri

INDEPENDENT
Letters: Blair and the Iraq war inquiry
Saturday, 22 January 2011

To portray the issue over bovine TB as being cows versus badgers is naive (Anna Pavord, 15 January - Making tracks: Dairy farmers are getting embroiled in a bitter dispute about badgers ). Whether you like cows more than badgers, because they have big eyes and walk in a sexy way is neither here nor there.

The badger is a wild creature that was an important part of this landscape long before humans walked across the North Sea land bridge. Modern cattle are a product of breeding and genetic manipulation by man, valued only for their ability to produce unnatural quantities of milk, and as dead meat. To promote the widespread destruction of a native mammal, integral to the natural ecosystem of our countryside, for the selfish, flippant reason that Anna Pavord's "life without lashings of butter, cheese and cream would be a miserable travesty" is silly.

The statement "some badgers are carriers of tuberculosis and can pass it on to cows" is disingenuous. Bovine TB is the problem, and the name gives one a clue where the problem originates from.

Badgers are hugely territorial and will only venture out of their area under abnormal circumstances, such as family structures being disrupted (this would happen with a cull involving trapping) or fear and disturbance (this would happen with a cull involving shooting). Cattle on the other hand are bought and sold and moved the length and breadth of the country constantly, coming into contact with other (possibly infected) cattle. So who is infecting whom and where does the blame lie? There is no scientific evidence to show that killing badgers will have any effect on the prevalence of bovine TB in cattle. Why should we kill badgers and cattle instead of using a vaccine?

I write as a person who was born and brought up on a dairy farm. I know the killing of our badgers is not the solution to this problem.

Ian Huckson
Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

 

 

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