Secret World Wildlife Rescue is disgusted with the decision of the Welsh Assembly who has agreed to pilot an 'INTENSIVE TREATMENT AREA' for re-active badger culling as part of their bovine TB control in cattle. This charity carries a national high profile for the rehabilitation of badgers and was the leading charity to implement a voluntary TB testing regime for all relocated badgers.
The Welsh Assembly has chosen to ignore the advice of Professor John Bourne who was the chairman of the Independent Science Group that carried out a 10 trial costing the government 50 million pounds. The result of which concluded that badger culling played no part in the control of bovine TB in cattle.
Most farming and conservation groups at the start of the trial in 1996 conceded that clear science was needed to resolve the TB problem. This was particularly welcomed by the NFU and other farming bodies. Now with the result published and after the deaths of 10,000 badgers these groups have turned their backs on the results. The Welsh Assembly is to take us back a decade by listening to retired vets and farming lobbying bodies.
The sad fact is that farming in Wales will be dramatically affected – yet it is only a nucleus of fanatical people with historical mind set that are driving this cull forward. They will be the ones with blood on their hands. We already are receiving desperate calls from farmers wishing to identify the areas involved as they do not wish to have their badgers culled.
Wales already carries the record for badger baiting and digging as a sport even though badgers are a protected species. The Welsh Assembly should be ashamed of their actions and will probably live to regret their decision – not only because of reprisals that could well affect their tourism and trading – but also the scientific fact that they will also spread the disease which they are hiding their actions behind.
March 2008
Reply to Anthony Gibson’s letter in Western Daily Press March 27th
Dear Sir,
It is alarming, to put in mildly, to see Anthony Gibson from the National Farmers Union misleading farmers about the realities of bovine TB in cattle (‘Facts’ of bovine TB are really distortions’).
Mr Gibson claims that cattle ‘wall up’ TB within themselves, as though this means they are not infectious with the disease. Yet Mr Gibson has attended exactly the same meetings as I have, where presentations from the Veterinary Laboratories Agency have made it absolutely clear that cattle are actively excreting infection even when the TB skin test says that they are uninfected.
Mr Gibson also claims that the Select Committee says that culling badgers ‘is an essential element’. Yet he provides no evidence for this, because the Select Committee has said no such thing. It only says it ‘might’ help. That is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Your readers should not be fooled by the crocodile tears that Mr Gibson sheds for infected badgers, either. These badgers would not catch TB if there was an effective cattle testing regime in place: the scientific evidence, again seen by the NFU, clearly shows that as cattle testing increases, TB declines in badgers. Badgers are the victims of infection in cattle, not vice versa.
And the NFU’s welfare strategy for the 1.6 per cent of badgers found to have significant TB infection is gruesomely cynical: it is to secure a licence to slaughter the vast majority of the badgers in a given area, whether they are infected or not.
Mr Gibson accuses the Badger Trust of ‘effectively conniving’ in a policy which ‘has had a disastrous effect on badger welfare’. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Badger Trust, along with Secret World Wildlife Rescue, the RSPCA, the National Trust, the RSPB, the Woodland Trust, the Wildlife Trusts and many other respected organisations with, between them, millions of supporters, want the best solution for bovine TB and animal welfare. None of them believe that killing badgers is part of that solution.
The NFU is not the voice of reason. It is the voice of isolation.
Yours sincerely,
Pauline Kidner
Secret World Wildlife Rescue
FACTS
- It is impossible to tell if a live badger has contracted Bovine TB
- It is impossible to tell whether a sett contains infected or non infected badgers
- It is impossible to have a cull of infected animals only. Many thousand healthy badgers would also die.
- Badgers do not suffer a long and slow painful death with Bovine TB. They can live a full life and breed even when infected.
Western Daily Press carries biased reporting
After several articles on bovine TB, badgers and cattle, the Western Daily Press ran a vote as to the public opinion. The result of this poll was that over 97% were against culling of badgers and just over 2% for culling.
However a further vote was held with a misleading title that could lead to voters not ticking the correct box for their own views. This vote was quickly ended once the percentage for the cull was higher than those against. (53%). It is a great shame if this paper is going to hide behind unclear wording to follow through the intensly personal vendetta against badgers that is being carried out by Chris Rundle.
If you feel that the last vote of opinion was misleading and that their reporting of Bovine TB in cattle and badgers is unfairly biased in the Western Daily Press, please write and complain. Perhaps they will soon see that their paper is losing it’s popularity not only with the townies but country folk too, including many farmers.
KILL, KILL, KILL
When will everyone tire of the constant call for killing badgers?
We honestly thought that after the 10 year experiment carried out by the Independent Scientific Group, we would at last see some sense coming out of the NFU and other farming bodies. But they are not prepared to listen to science and are still calling for culling by using incorrect reporting of findings and some downright lies. Can it really be that 10,000 badgers who lost their lives in the trial were really killed for no reason at all? The science is constantly questioned despite all of the work being independently audited and peer reviewed to it’s final conclusion.
Please see the attached reports by Chris Cheesman who has been studying the disease and badgers at Woodchester Park for the past 30 years ( now retired ).
Also the report by Warren Cresswell, Wildlife Ecologist and Badger Specialist.
The evidence is irrefutable – culling of badgers will never resolve bovine TB in cattle and may well make it worse.
Pauline Kidner
Western Daily Press Poll March 2008
Dear Friend,
My thanks to those of you that were able to vote on the Western Daily Press Poll. Sadly the opportunity to vote was quickly withdrawn once the ratio was in the favour of culling badgers. This was no doubt due to the wording that would easily trick voters to vote with the heading quote rather than the tick box statement. It would appear that there is a campaign headed by Chris Rundle of the WDP to encourage badger culling by using biased reporting.
Perhaps complaints to www.westerndailypress.co.uk/letters would make them realise how many of us are prepared to fight for the badgers cause ??
Please remain alert to scaremongering and false statements to mislead the public. Do contact us if you think we are unaware of any of these actions ………… and do keep getting those signatures to help our petition.
Pauline Kidner
Secret World Wildlife Rescue
Reply to Chris Rundle’s article in Western Daily Press March 6th 2008
Dear Editor,
Yet again Chris Rundle fills his column with sweeping statements without research to back his argument.
Foxes and badgers have never moved ‘into’ towns but towns have taken over their territory. Foxes have adapted easily due to the negligence of the humans in the disposal of kitchen scraps and the resulting rubbish from fast food companies.
Badgers also adapt as often houses with gardens and sport facilities allow them short grass which is so important to their foraging of earth worms. Both these species fed irresponsibly by people who put food out in their gardens in such quantities that it allows more animals that the territory could support, create a problem that is man made.
So foxes, Mr Rundle do not carry disease ? Saracoptic mange is one disease/parasite that foxes carry that can be caught by dogs and also, I mention through bitter experience, humans too. Hedgehogs carry ringworm, garden birds carry salmonella and which animal carries more disease than any other in the world ? – it is the human being! These ever present diseases carry no threat if people are sensible about personal hygiene and have a healthy immune system. Farmers work constantly with animals dealing with their excreta and care and are known to be the healthiest population that we have in the country.
How interesting that at a meeting held by DEFRA last year, an NFU representative was asked by Trevor Lawson from the Badger Trust how the NFU would ‘Sell’ culling of badgers to the generalpublic. The response was that it was ‘easy’ – they could be told that the money spend on Bovine TB could go towards children’s hospitals and that if the public were warned that badger excrement in their gardens could be a way of contracting Bovine TB, there would soon be support.
The fact that there has never been a case of Bovine TB contracted from badger contact or excrement and there is probably more risk from faeces of dogs and cats perhaps gives an indication that this a scaremongering tactic to gain public support. I hope they will not be so easily fooled.
Can I just ask why you allow people to write articles which make statements that are neither backed by science or fact?
Yours sincerely,
Pauline Kidner
Secret World Wildlife Rescue
January 2008
In answer to Sir David King’s report stating Badger Culling should be considered:
Badger Cull Hysteria
How can it be that one scientist, Sir David King, can make an announcement that is said to overturn 9 years of scientific research that has cost millions of pounds and has been peer reviewed and extensively overseen?
We would expect Bovine TB to increase as new measures are being introduced such as pre-movement of cattle which is catching the infected cattle which has gone undetected before in the skin test. Further introduction of the Gamma Interferon test will do the same. Hard though this may be, we shall should eventually see improvements eventually because 80% of transmission of Bovine TB is cattle related. It is a huge financial and emotional strain for the farming fraternity but surely they must see sense from the ISG report which stately categorically that culling of badgers was neither ethical, cost effective or practical.
It is the political bodies such as the NFU that drive this never ending argument forward but then it’s always difficult to admit that you have been wrong for many years. The NFU does not represent the vast majority of farmers who are happy to have healthy badgers on their land and know that culling of badgers would cause movement meaning that they could well get infected badgers on their land.
Bovine TB is not a health problem to humans as we drink pasteurised milk and cook beef. Perhaps the farmers should look at the thousands of cattle culled each year due to mastitis and laminitis that far exceeds the number of culled animals due to TB. Perhaps if we introduced post testing of cattle as they do in Scotland , we would resolve the problem even quicker.
JUNE 2007
June 13th 07
STOP PRESS…………………………………..
The past few weeks, newspapers have led with many stories of how the government is close to allowing a large scale culling of badgers. Today, June 13th, the Independent Scientific Group has published their findings after 9 years of research. Badger Culling is considered unviable in all aspects of the control of Bovine TB in Cattle.
Amazingly we now have the NFY and other farming organisations discrediting this information as it does not suit their purposes. Even more incredulous is the fact that the government is still, even in the light of this information from the ISG, considering a large scale cull of badgers. This is just because of the vociferous demands of the farming fraternity not prepared to carry out further necessary regulations in order to control this disease unless they get the ‘sweetener’ of killing badgers.
Sadly it would appear that despite huge public reaction at the DEFRA consultation in 2006 and now an independent scientific paper carried out at the request of the government – the historic cries of ‘we must be allowed to kill badgers’ still echoes in Westminster and the countryside. Everyone who cares about the countryside and in particular badgers, and I have to say this includes many, many farmers who do not agree with the idea of culling badgers, please make your voices heard through this petition, or through letters to the press or your Member of Parliament. The government must realise the huge opposition that they will face should they dare to follow through culling badgers in the light of sound scientific evidence.
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Press Release sent out to the media on June 12th 2007
Some good news for badgers
Secret World Wildlife Rescue welcomes the news that badgers may be safe. Well known for her balanced views, Pauline Kidner, the charity founder, has always maintained that culling of badgers would never be an answer to controlling Bovine Tb in cattle. The ISG’s report available from tomorrow makes it quite clear that killing badgers is not an option especially with so much still to be done to stop cattle to cattle transmission of this disease.
Why only ‘some’ good news for badgers ? Despite the science, it is quite obvious from the NFU and other cattle organisations that they will not adhere to extra controls unless killing of badgers is part of this exercise. Perhaps this is why our government, even being aware of the likely results of the Independent Scientific Group’s research, have gone ahead and carried out cruel experiments in to the use of snares on badgers. They have also assessed gassing as a measure of killing badgers despite the fact that this method was found to be unacceptable form of control in the 1980’s.
We accept the emotional and financial constraints on farmers experiencing Bovine TB. But when people like Anthony Gibson make dangerous comments about farmers taking matters in to their own hands, as they are so desperate, then perhaps they will do well to read the ISG report through and absorb the science that shows that these irresponsible people may resolve their own problem but endanger neighbouring farms. As Ben Bradshaw stated in the House of Commons, it is impossible to tell whether a badger has Bovine TB when alive or to identify infected setts. Large scale culling will be unethical, unpractical and unviable leading to sporadic culling which increases TB breakdowns.
Bovine TB will increase with pre-testing of cattle being moved now being carried out and a gamma interferon test. Better testing will pick up the infected cattle which skin testing has failed to do. If killing of badgers is considered, it will be a purely political move in the face of 10 years of science that now shows that it will not solve the problem and it will also make it worse. Large scale culling of badgers using methods that will be indiscriminate will be the end of our countryside as it is today.
One of the things that all the science says is that a piecemeal, patchy culling regime for badgers could make matters worse.
Junior DEFRA minister Jeff Rooker said the Government will make its decision on whether to cull or not once the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on TB submits its final report in May.
Anthony Gibson, NFU representative stated that it is quite clear the government has it in mind to give the green light to farmers to apply for licences ( for culling of badgers ) as from whenever the ISG report is published.
Trevor Lawson, Badger Trust representative claimed that the TB testing regime is grossly inadequate and that scientists advised a year ago that TB testing on two, three, four yearly cycles is not enough.
