Fancy an unconventional Autumn "holiday"?

By : Forum Member
Published 2nd September 2014 |
Read latest comment - 3rd September 2014

Canvassing for badger  protectors, for a day or two or a week or two! 

It'll be a mixture of challenging map-reading and orienteering in the pitch dark; car chases; lazing around near a badger sett watching the stars (and flickering torches); or just supporting other "holiday-makers" in Somerset and Gloucestershire doing exactly that ...  Anybody and everybody's welcome, including those who can't read maps (there are guides), want help in putting up their tents  and aren't fit or hardy. 

If interested and wanting more information, please see the Facebook web sites of Stop The CullGloucestershire Against Badger Shooting and Somerset Wounded Badger Patrol.  The websites provide help with accommodation, transport, understanding the legal issues (and staying safe), etc.   


Linda
CareersPartnershipUK
Comments

Don't think the third web link was as helpful as I thought it would be.... 


Linda
CareersPartnershipUK

All 3 links seem to work ok, given them all a like 

This is obviously an issue close to your heart.

The only badger I ever see is normally lying at the side of the road. I've seen media reports of badger culls, and from memory its something to do with passing TB to cattle? 

Knowing absolutely nothing and being uneducated about badgers, is this a bit like the fox hunting debate. One side sees them as a pest or a threat to their lively hoods and the other side sees it as cruel and inhumane.

Is there a middleground for both sides or another solution? Are badgers known to spread TB to farm animals, and if so is there another way of dealing with it? Or is kneejerk reaction to incorrect data, and there is no proof badgers are to blame?


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

I've got a feeling that it is the human race that spreads more diseases than any other animal, yet we don't go culling the human species. What we do is employ scientists to find a cure. 


Thanks,
Barney

My Uncle has badgers visiting his garden regularly, the odd deer too! Only down side is that they walk along the same piece of grass and have created a furrow in his lawn.

I'm not convinced by either side of the cull argument so for once keeping my mouth shut 


Clive

Are badgers known to spread TB to farm animals, and if so is there another way of dealing with it? Or is kneejerk reaction to incorrect data, and there is no proof badgers are to blame?

There's considerable scientific doubt whether badgers can spread TB to cows, research shows badgers and cows don't get within sneezing distance of each other for long enough for them to pass on the disease through the "aerosol" route.  No-one knows whether it's possible for cattle to get TB from badgers' dung or pee - cow behaviour and anatomy seem to rule it out and only 1.7% badgers get ill enough with TB to become infectious (able to pass the disease on to another animal).  Also DNA analysis shows generations of cows with TB and of badgers with TB living in the same locality often have different strains of the disease.

DEFRA and the NFU have a problem with the law, though.  They've got to say they're killing badgers as a bTB control measure because killing badgers for any other reason is against the Badger Act and anyone caught doing it faces 6 months in prison for each badger they deliberately harm.

Wales have halved their cattle bTB in 4 years by cattle measures and better biosecurity on farms.  All the independent scientists not on DEFRA's payroll say cattle controls are the only way of stopping cattle bTB, killing badgers won't do it.  

... And now I'll get off my soapbox!  Seriously though, if you or any family and friends can help out, Gloucestershire and Somerset's badgers need YOU! 

 

 

 

 

 


Linda
CareersPartnershipUK

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