To Cull or not to cull.

[Bushwhacker]

toto???????

Hold the Line....

 

[Retired Member southey]

Hold the Line....

[video=youtube;1csr0dxalpI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1csr0dxalpI&feature=re lated[/video]

 

[British Red]

...and they weren't a Welsh regiment!!

 

[santaman2000]

....ps. the above post is rubbish. If grass grew all year round then cows would be out all year round.

We do grow grass all year round. Rye grass in Winter and several appropriate grasses in Summer. We still confine beef cattle in feedlots for several weeksto "finish" them before slaughter and milk cattle during milking for the very reasons I mentioned.

Purely grass fed cattle has a niche market (with a high price) among a few of the foodies but the vast majority detest the tatse of meat or milk other than grain fed.

 

[santaman2000]

Sure - they kill other things (pigeons, beetles, butterflies, dragonflies, collared doves, mice, rats etc.) which livestock farmers don't worry about. But you can't farm without controlling predating lifeforms - be in something as simple as blight or as complex as deer. Its part of farming.

Actually cattle farmers and ranchers do worry about at least some of those vermin Red. The rats and mice raid the grain bins and even what they don't eat can be contaminated. And many burrowing animals create holes that cattle or horses can step in and break legs. I suspect a complete list would get complex and dependent on local but you get the idea.

 

[British Red]

No-one loves rats for sure - but most of the beef cattle here in the Fens are predominantly grass fed and salt marsh grazed - fantastic beef and not much grain feeding going on thankfully

Heres how they do it here

Lots of hay feeding in the winter and some silage


Normans Cattle by British Red, on Flickr

 

[santaman2000]

Yeah we feed hay and sileage also. The grain feeding (for beef cattle) is the last few weeks before slaughter. Dairy cattle are grass fed between milking seasons (which isn't long) but go onto a commercial feed during.

I've eaten the beef over there and enjoyed it (although you cut it a bit differently as I didn't recognize all the diffferent steaks) But most Americans (and I suspect a large part of your export market) prefer the tatse of the finished cattle and confined milkers.

 

[Bowlander]

They should be given the same status as foxes, protected from cruelty but able to be legally controlled.

 

[demographic]

By doing a selective cull it will displace badgers from other areas as they move into different territories and actually make the problem worse. That's what the last scientific study showed.
But don't let that get in the way of anything...

 

[British Red]

All the evidence suggests that selective culling of cattle doesn't work either.




It is also true that consistently, every year, far far more money is spent on the bureaucracy of testing than compensating farmers

http://www.bovinetb.info/

So, if ineffective culling should be stopped - and I think we can all agree with that, we must surely stop all ineffective culling.

 

[fishfish]

They should be given the same status as foxes, protected from cruelty but able to be legally controlled.

ime up for that ,what about digging though? that legal for foxs but i dont think joe public would like it.

 

[fishfish]

All the evidence suggests that selective culling of cattle doesn't work either.

View attachment 12560


It is also true that consistently, every year, far far more money is spent on the bureaucracy of testing than compensating farmers

http://www.bovinetb.info/

So, if ineffective culling should be stopped - and I think we can all agree with that, we must surely stop all ineffective culling.

so what is different in newzealand? do they have badgers? better drugs? (for the cows!!)

 

[British Red]

Their disease vector was possums, not badgers - a species introduced from Australia

In New Zealand in 1990 the proportion of TB in cattle was about 7 times greater than it was in Great Britain. However in 1997 the proportions were about equal. Currently (in 2010) the proportion in New Zealand is about 40 times less than what it is in Great Britain. Since the early nineties, control of the principal wildlife vector, the possum, in New Zealand has increased whilst in Great Britain since 1986 control of the principal wildlife vector, the badger, has reduced.

Now given the elimination of the non-native species was palatable (not saying we should eliminate badgers here), it does show that near eradication of the disease vector wildlife combined with active culling and management of cattle, the diseas can be controlled.

 

[British Red]

Another interesting fact http://www.bovinetb.info/ireland.php

Cattle-related actions are similar in both the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, focusing on surveillance (the detection of new cases, through field and factory surveillance) and control (the resolution of existing cases, through herd restriction, reactor removal, ongoing testing, etc.). However badgers are routinely culled in the Irish Republic but not in Northern Ireland.

In 1998, The Irish Republic had 0.55% of cattle with TB reactors. By 2011, this had fallen to 0.32%

In 1998 Northern Ireland had 0.4% of cattle with TB reactors. By 2011 this had risen to 0.5%.

Same island, same cattle controls, only difference being badger controls. In the same time period, in Great Britain, the proportion of cattle showing TB indicators rose by 700%.

In 1998 The United Kingdom abandoned the previous "clean ring" and "interim cull strategies" (for reasons of cost, not efficacy)

Since 1998 our trade deficit in dairy has risen by £700,000,000.

It is possible to vaccinate cattle against TB - but EU law forbids it!

In a 2010 opinion piece in Trends in Microbiology, Paul and David Torgerson argued that bovine tuberculosis is a negligible public health problem in the UK, providing milk is pasteurized. Bovine TB is very rarely spread by aerosol from cattle to humans. Therefore, the bovine tuberculosis control programme in the UK in its present form is a misallocation of resources and provides no benefit to society

Plenty to think about on this subject I believe - but continuing to ignore a mounting problem, that now costs the country approaching a billion pounds a year, is not the solution I feel.

 

[santaman2000]

.....Two animals both of which can infect humans and each other. One is a food source, one is not. Either can communicate a disease to people (who can of course be vaccinated against TB).....

I had to look it up to even find that there is a TB vaccine for humans. But apparently it's not particularly effective and is usually contraindicated: www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/vaccines/default.htm

 

[British Red]

It was routinely given in my generation - we all have the "BCG" mark. As I said above - TB in cattle (given that milk is routinely pasteurised) presents almost zero health risk to humans and indeed the cattle can be immunised effectively - other than by EU rules (sigh).

 

[JonathanD]

TB jabs not given to us here anymore then Hugh?

 

[British Red]

I believe it is now offered immediately after birth rather than in the early teens as it used to be Jon

There were 9,042 new cases of TB in the UK in 2011.The main burden of this infection is in London, with 3,588 cases reported in 2011, accounting for 40% of the UK total. According to the provisional data, country of origin was recorded in 8,453 new cases, and almost three quarters (6,270) were in non-UK born people.

Certainly not something to be trifled with - but there seems to be little evidence of a bovine / human disease vector.

 

[JonathanD]

Ah, yeah. I did know that, but it got sidelined in my selective memory banks

 

[British Red]

I'll get off my hobby horse now - but the anti farmer attacks drive me nuts. Particularly when people state that the facts say that culling does not work or that farmers have it easy.

Bovine TB is rampant and escalating in this country - the progression is moving beyond linear towards exponential - that is a fact

The rise in TB coincides with ceasing of badger control clean ring strategies (because the then government deemed it too expensive - a government that was of a different political party than the current one for the avoidance of doubt) - that is a fact

The ROI continued badger culls and their TB has fallen whilst our rose - that is a fact

We are now hugely in a balance of trade deficit for dairy - importing dairy products from countries that do control badgers - that is a fact

The average dairy farmer age is now around 60 - that is a fact

More dairy farmers are giving up each year - that is a fact

Most of the money spent on TB control is not given to the farmers - that is a fact.

None of those facts mean that we need to cull badgers, but they do mean that we must unless we take other courses of action.

Those courses of action could be simply accepting bovine TB, immunising our cattle (and ignoring the EU rule), immunising badgers (not sure how practical that is) etc. But a "just stop the cull" really sin't a viable option.

Cattle can be immunised against TB, the same as they can be against foot and mouth, but the EU forbids it because it messes up their testing (for preventable diseases).

Farmers are not the problem here, red tape that facilitates, rather than prevents, the spread of diseases is the problem - combined with sort sighted government that has caused a huge disease pool by stopping the previously effective controls.

We could of course just immunise the cattle and solve the problem, rather than waste billions on a preventable disease.

......and relax!