Having been out on the last two nights watching badgers, it was very disheartening to hear that Sir David King the UK Governments chief scientist is calling for a cull of badgers.
The reason for this cull is to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis within cattle in the UK. And while it is true that badgers are part of the reason why tuberculosis is spreading this cull will not do anything to prevent it remaining in the cattle and returning at much higher levels of infection in years to come.
Following the foot and mouth outbreak, when farmers were restocking, areas that had previously been free of bovine tuberculosis became infected. This was because simply that the cattle that introduced had the disease. Further, this restocking proved a long held theory that it was the cattle that were infecting the badgers first and not the other way round.
The real problem is one of intensive farming, the larger the heard the faster that any disease will spread. With herds of two and three hundred cows, it takes no time at all before something like tuberculosis becomes a latent infection within that population. Further, because of the size of the heard, it becomes impossible to isolate any infected or suspected animals.
In the past when a stockman had only a heard of fifty cows, he (or she) knew the individual beasts well and were better able to spot any problems earlier. Now it can take days before a stockman has the time to notice any change. This is not neglect, it is just that the more mechanised and intensive a farm is, the fewer people there are to watch and spot a change.
For example in a dairy heard one of the biggest problems is mastitis, where an udder becomes infected, this raises the bacterial count in the milk. In the old days it was via good hygiene and management that this would be spotted. Now there is reliance upon laboratory tests to show what is know as the Cell Count. This is why it is technology, mechanisation and intensification that are causing problems like tuberculosis in cattle. The cure is not killing off large populations of wildlife but reducing the heard sizes and ensuring infected and suspect animals are properly isolated.
This call for a Badger cull is not a scientific solution, but an economic one based upon politics.
The reason for this cull is to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis within cattle in the UK. And while it is true that badgers are part of the reason why tuberculosis is spreading this cull will not do anything to prevent it remaining in the cattle and returning at much higher levels of infection in years to come.
Following the foot and mouth outbreak, when farmers were restocking, areas that had previously been free of bovine tuberculosis became infected. This was because simply that the cattle that introduced had the disease. Further, this restocking proved a long held theory that it was the cattle that were infecting the badgers first and not the other way round.
The real problem is one of intensive farming, the larger the heard the faster that any disease will spread. With herds of two and three hundred cows, it takes no time at all before something like tuberculosis becomes a latent infection within that population. Further, because of the size of the heard, it becomes impossible to isolate any infected or suspected animals.
In the past when a stockman had only a heard of fifty cows, he (or she) knew the individual beasts well and were better able to spot any problems earlier. Now it can take days before a stockman has the time to notice any change. This is not neglect, it is just that the more mechanised and intensive a farm is, the fewer people there are to watch and spot a change.
For example in a dairy heard one of the biggest problems is mastitis, where an udder becomes infected, this raises the bacterial count in the milk. In the old days it was via good hygiene and management that this would be spotted. Now there is reliance upon laboratory tests to show what is know as the Cell Count. This is why it is technology, mechanisation and intensification that are causing problems like tuberculosis in cattle. The cure is not killing off large populations of wildlife but reducing the heard sizes and ensuring infected and suspect animals are properly isolated.
This call for a Badger cull is not a scientific solution, but an economic one based upon politics.
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1 comment:
How terrible! I know how you love the badgers and it does not seem like good planning! MsTree
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