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PRESS RELEASE: Blasting badgers won't kill cattle TB

From: "Badger Trust Press"
26 October 2010
For Immediate Release

Badger Trust rallies public against futile jumble of plans

The Badger Trust appeals in a new leaflet for the public to respond to the Coalition Government’s consultation on its pointless plans to license farmers to kill badgers in parts of England, its preferred option after setting out a futile muddle of assertions in its official consultation document. It is vital for those concerned about the welfare of this indigenous species to respond not least because the National Farmers’ Union – a far larger and wealthier organisation – is staging briefing meetings countrywide to encourage its members to support the killing of badgers – at their own expense.

The closing date for responses is December 8, 2010 and the Badger Trust leaflet gives details of where to find the consultation document, where to send comments and how to contact Members of Parliament, as well as encouraging people to write to newspapers and broadcasters. It is concerned that people could experience great difficulty in reading and understanding the mass of detail. The Badger Trust is also formulating a list of challenging questions for Defra.

The consultation document contains inconsistencies, confusing statements and omissions at various points throughout its great length. It is cynically slanted against the badger and fails to quote fairly the principal scientific finding which it buries in an annex 134 pages down. This states:


“First, while badgers are clearly a source of cattle TB, careful evaluation of our own and others’ data indicates that badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain.

Indeed, some policies under consideration are likely to make matters worse rather than better. Second, weaknesses in cattle testing regimes mean that cattle themselves contribute significantly to the persistence and spread of disease in all areas where TB occurs, and in some parts of Britain are likely to be the main source of infection. Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone” (1)

This distortion of the main conclusion of the report comes despite Defra saying the RBCT was the only one (of the previous policies) “that was conducted as a rigorous scientific trial”.

The Badger Trust leaflet reminds the public of the main points of the case for the species and also points out the most serious distortions in the consultation document. The full detail of the Trust’s stance is available on its website at www.badgertrust.org.uk.

Badger Trust Chairman Dave Williams said: “It is essential that everyone who wants a fair deal for the badger should do all they can to persuade the Coalition Government to change its plans to kill badgers in England. It is vital also to make MPs aware of the dangers and fundamental unfairness of what the Government is proposing to do in their names.

“Furthermore, for over almost 40 years farmers have been hoodwinked into believing localised killing of badgers would help. In fact the Government has got the farmers off its back by manipulating them into footing the bill for the impossible task of shooting either free-running or cage-trapped badgers at night. This entails co-ordinating the activity over areas the size of a large city for at least four years, only to risk making their own plight worse.

“Their representatives tried to play politics only to find the politicians were better at it”.

 

NOTES

(1) Bovine TB: The Scientific Evidence. A Science Base for a Sustainable Policy to Control TB in Cattle. An Epidemiological Investigation into Bovine Tuberculosis. Final Report of the Independent Scientific

Group on Cattle TB, 2007. From the second paragraph of the Chairman’s covering letter to the Secretary of State.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/isg/report/final_report.pdf

 

 

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