Anthony Gibson: Trust 'responsible for spread of bovine TB'
That the Badger Trust should seek to mount a legal challenge to two pilot culls designed to test the effectiveness of the Government's strategy for beating bovine tuberculosis was depressingly predictable.
One always hopes that at some stage in this sorry saga, concern for the welfare of animals will prevail over headline-grabbing emotionalism, and one's hopes invariably come to nothing.
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At best – which assumes a Government victory in the courts – the Trust's judicial review will waste a great deal of money – their own, and ours as taxpayers – without delaying the start of operations.
At worst – if they win – it will be a major setback to disease control which will, in time, result in the illness and deaths of vastly more badgers than will ever be humanely killed in the course of the official cull.
As I have written before, no one is more responsible for the spread of bovine TB through the badger population than the Badger Trust, in its stubborn refusal to co-operate or even acquiesce in action to break the cycle of infection.
I am no lawyer, and it would be inappropriate to offer detailed comment at this stage, but it does strike me that, in its grounds for a judicial review, the Trust is rather scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of possible defects in the Government's decision-making process, which is what the outcome will turn upon.
I'm certainly more optimistic as to the outcome than I was before the Trust's letter was made public.
Meanwhile, farmers in the TB hotspot areas have been dealt a further heavy blow after EU veterinary inspectors intervened to force a change in the regulations governing when you can bring animals onto a TB-restricted farm.
Until last week, the rule was that if a farm had a confirmed outbreak – failed skin-test and evidence of lesions at post mortem – and had therefore lost its Official TB-free status (OTF) – it could still bring animals in, subject to a veterinary risk assessment.
But when the EU Food and Veterinary Office inspectors visited a few weeks back, they gave this the thumbs down, and insisted on a complete embargo on movements onto a confirmed outbreak farm, until it has had its first 60-day re-test.
Now, while one can just about understand the better-safe-than-sorry logic for that change, the way in which the decision was announced was Defra at its worst.
There was no prior warning, no letter or even e-mail to farmers who might be affected. Just an announcement, out of the blue, on the website.
I can offer two crumbs of comfort.
The first is that the change only applies to farms which have their OTF status withdrawn.
If it's suspended, because of a failed skin test, but no lesions and a negative culture test, then the rules haven't changed and re-stocking may still be possible, subject to a risk assessment.
The second is that it only applies to new breakdowns, so very few, if any, farmers will yet have been affected.
But it won't be long before it starts to bite.
Losing a stock bull to TB and not being able to replace him for 60 days will hurt, as will not being able to re-stock a beef unit, or replace dairy cows.
The advice from the NFU if your OTF status is withdrawn, and you really need to move stock onto the farm, is to talk to your vet and AHVLA, because there may be a way round it. There's also a very good flow-chart on the NFU's website.
I had planned to finish with the latest TB statistics, but they've fallen victim to the AHVLA computer fiasco. That's something else that is depressingly predictable.
3 Comments
by Mikethepike
Friday, February 17 2012, 4:35PM
“Aaron Blair is spot on. I'd just add that for the past couple of decades the NFU (very foolishly) has done its best to demonise the badger, accusing it (without a shred of evidence) of every wildlife crime in the book, from the fading numbers of skylark, to the reduction of peewits, hedgehogs, bees and wasps, all of them in fact casualties of a wide range of other factors with farming practices high on the guilty list. Interestingly it's not all that long since the same Anthony Gibson was writing in the Western Morning News saying "that a bad cull could very easily be worse in all sorts of ways than no cull at all" and he went on to add because of the high costs he thought it very unlikely that any cull licences would be issued. Now he's blaming the Badger Trust for attempting to stop a cull which he had so little time for. Come on, Gibson, make up your mind. As for his ludicrous accusation that more badgers will die from bTB than from a cull he clearly lives in some sort of fantasy land which rejects scientific research and prefers rampant prejudice. His whingeing over the (long overdue) tightening of cattle movements, introduced with the clear objective of reducing cattle-to-cattle transmission-- the festering sore that is the root cause of the disease--is just as damning.”
by jessshakespea
Wednesday, February 15 2012, 10:56AM
“Couldn't agree more Aaron. What amuses me (in a not funny way) is that I have seen plenty of 'headline grabbing emotionalism' from the farming faction. Much of which is utter rubbish. Like for example the claim that there are badgers everywhere dying horrible deaths from tb. Decades of study at Woodchester Park has not unearthed a very large % of badgers with tb, never mind dying from it. They are naturally robust with an inbuilt resistance to the disease (unlike our cattle) and tend not to become ill. Badgers don't live very long anyway, and they are probably much more likely to die under the wheels of a car than from btb, even if they have it.
I suspect the Badger Trust know this, given the number of badger charities out there picking up sick and injured badgers.
In fact, the farming fraternity has probably done more to increase levels of btb in badgers than anyone else, with repeated calls for culling (much of it reactive, the kind that most exacerbates the perturbation effect) over the last 50 or so years.
This fixation on the 'wildlife reservoir' is diverting attention from the robust measures farmers in general refuse to put in place and have done since the problem reared it's head again after foot and mouth. Put your own house in order first and then talk about how anything else is dealt with. Culling badgers should not be the carrot that encourages farmers to do the necessary and follow restrictions that should have been in place long ago.”
by Aaron_Blair
Wednesday, February 15 2012, 9:52AM
“Anthony Gibson remains to true to his original NFU form in blaming everyone other than the industry body he represents.
Unfortunately for him, the real culprit in the bovine TB debacle is the NFU. In the wake of foot and mouth disease in 2001, the NFU put pressure on the Government to allow restocking prior to TB testing. Through these untested cattle, bovine TB spread across England, often to areas where the testing was too infrequent to pick up the infection before new hotspots became established. Witness the crisis in Shropshire that continues to unfold.
The Badger Trust, along with other nature conservation and animal welfare groups, was specifically excluded from the bovine TB eradication group (TBEG) for England set up by Hillary Benn. Although this group was presented with evidence that cattle problems, such as repeat testing inconclusive reactors rather than their prompt removal, was both contrary to EU law and likely to increase the risk of bovine TB spreading, it did nothing to encourage better practice. The NFU was the dominant body on TBEG.
The NFU has also opposed all the other measures introduced following campaigning by the Badger Trust and other organisations: the gamma interferon blood test; pre-movement testing; increased frequency of herd testing.
The NFU has no credibility. Scientific research published in the world's leading journals attributes 85% of the bovine TB problem to cattle, and suggests that badger involvement is a result of acquiring infection from cattle in the first place.
So this is not the fault of badgers, or the Badger Trust, but of farmers and the NFU.
Sadly, with Defra now being run by farmers for farmers, and with the NFU unable to learn and evolve, all the attention is back on badgers. The situation is unlikely to improve. Indeed, following the introduction of annual testing for all herds across the West and South West, the situation will certainly worsen in the short term as more previously hidden infected herds are discovered.
And the real losers, again, are tax payers who have to fork out £100 million a year to "compensate" farmers for a problem of their own making.”