Every time I visit farms in South Devon, the story is the same; of farmers struggling to cope with the impact of bovine TB, financial insecurity and bureaucracy.
Whilst visiting Woodhouse Farm recently, I was shown a Charolais-cross calf whose mother was destroyed when the calf was just a week old. Carol and David had already lost 15 of their herd to bovine TB this time around when a further 3 tested positive 60 days later. This calf's mother was destroyed at one week old and David now faces the difficulty of hand rearing the calf, for which he will receive no compensation and the depressing risk that it too will succumb to bovine TB as a result of the infected reservoir of diseased badgers in the surrounding area.
This is a familiar story for all Devon farmers; a case that ‘all animals are equal but badgers are more equal than others'. The figures speak for themselves; a 42% increase in bovine TB between 2007 and 2008, and over 200,000 cattle slaughtered since 1997 at a cost to you and me of £700 million. Whilst the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, RBCT has been held up as a reason not to cull, many of its flaws have been ignored. In the South Hams, some of the increased animal movement issues, also known as perturbation, which were highlighted by the RCBT, would be reduced by the surrounding rivers and the A38. I call on the government to stop fudging the issues and to allow a cull of infected badgers within this area. Nobody wishes to see the extermination of healthy badgers but we need to recognise that even the long awaited vaccines will not treat diseased badgers and, as long as we allow bovine TB to spread amongst the badger population, it will cause great suffering to these delightful animals as well as destruction and misery to cattle and farmers.
It is clear that farming in England is in crisis. At a time when increasing energy costs and scarcity will threaten food supplies over the coming decades, we need to build resilience with a local food supply chain. We risk losing that in South Devon as more of our food is imported or driven hundreds of miles from central depots. Farmers are also deeply concerned about the exodus of young people from the industry. Many are struggling to keep going single handed as farm incomes cannot support taking on extra staff. Vital skills are being lost and one by one, dairy farms are closing across the South Hams. The landscape we all love, with hillsides grazed by livestock, will become degraded with gorse and bracken as it becomes increasingly difficult to make a living wage from farming.
What do farmers need? An end to over regulation, the right to cull diseased badgers, incentives to help them to take on staff and a ‘David' to fight their corner against the supermarket Goliaths.
I have just leafletted the farming area around Blackawton, and the farmers there are hoping that their MP will really focus on their needs. There are some desperate people out there. Edward Wilton of Grimpstone Farm Balckawton would welcome Sarah in her wellie boots and he hopes she would be interested.
- J sutton
1. The Krebs science was set up in 1996 by Angela Browning, the MP for Honiton and Tiverton, when she was a minister at MAFF under John Major. Krebs is "Conservative" science. So how is it the Conservatives got their science "wrong"? 2. In Northern Ireland bTB fell from 9.95% of herds in 2002 to 5.35% of herds in 2007. This was done without a cull, but through better testing and movement controls. In Devon bTB has skyrocketed to24% In England the NFU has refused to countenance greater testing and movement controls unless there is a cull. Please draw you own conclusions. (My conclusion is "shoot self in foot".)
- Theo Hopkins
Professor Sir John Krebs concluded in his 1997 report on the problem that there was "compelling evidence" that badgers transmit TB to cattle, so I am not sure what you mean when you say that the "Conservatives got their science wrong". The programme of trials that followed his report presupposed such a link and was supposed to identify the most effective strategy for preventing TB in badgers spreading into cattle populations. The problem was that the subsequent trial under a Labour Government was, in my view, inadequate due to the absurdly short periods of time used to trap and shoot badgers in the trial areas, the small areas trialled and interference by animal rights groups. The trial was stopped too soon and observations of edge effects in later years were not taken into account. The NFU is absolutely right in their stance that testing and movement controls alone cannot control bovine TB. We must stop pretending that you can vaccinate a diseased badger. If we do not take action there will be few uninfected badgers left to vaccinate and dairy farms will disappear from the South Hams.
- Dr Sarah Wollaston
Which is most important?, The countryside farmed by Farmers who care for their animals,or the badgers healthy or otherwise. Surely a balance can be found. We are now hearing that domestic pets can be infected,Humans next?
- May
@ Dr Sarah Wollaston. Here is not the place to debate bTB and Krebs. Your reply above, however, may indicate how polarised the debate has become, which is not helpful. Happens, I am not in your constituency; I was prompted to visit your website for other reasons. But I am in a very nearby Devon constituency. But I do own conservation/productive woodland with a badger sett within it. What I would like to know is how my land can be repopulated with badgers after the cull. And that within my lifetime, which is (statistically) another twelve years. : -) Many other landowners will be thinking the same. And I am not a bunny-hugger, BTW, I am looking for practical solutions within the coming political reality of a cull. (But I do have two bunnies in my freezer.) This re-population is something you may want to give some thought to as this will be in the mind of many conservation groups and individuals in your constituency. And thank you for having a website that will post my critical comments. My own sitting Conservative MP would never be so daring. And he will not engage with me at all on the idea of a restocking of land after a cull.
- Theo Hopkins
Contributors to this subject will no doubt appreciate that Sarah will not have the capacity to respond further until after the general election.
- The Moderator
Can I suggest that you undertake some research on this subject Sarah? Your claim that there will be few uninfected badgers left unless 'action' is taken has no foundation in fact. Even in those areas where bovine TB is a problem in cattle, the great majority of badgers are free from the disease - check the figures in the ISG's Final Report and in the peer-reviewed scientific papers arising from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Your claim that bovine TB will cause "great suffering" to badgers is also questionable. True, the very small percentage of badgers who contract TB and go on to develop the full-blown disease most certainly suffer. However most of the badgers who contract the disease actually cope with it very well, are not infectious, and lead normal lives. Again, you can check scientific papers for verification of this. Killing thousands of healthy badgers in order to end the suffering of this small proportion of the population is surely not the right answer? Of course, you are calling for a 'cull' of diseased badgers rather than a blanket cull. However, as there is no reliable test for TB in live badgers, how exactly would a cull of diseased badgers be carried out? And how would a partial cull of badgers, particularly if carried out by farmers as you suggest, avoid the perturbation effect which ends up spreading the disease more widely? Finally, in response to your comments about vaccination, may I quote another physician, Dr Adrian Stallwood, who had the following published in the Western Mail back in April: "The arguments against killing badgers — and in favour of vaccinating them — are now extremely persuasive. As a medical doctor, I know that vaccination does not cure disease. What is undisputed is its value in protecting people and animals from contracting it in the first place. Interestingly, we in the medical profession refer to ‘herd immunity’ — the way in which whole communities can resist infection when a high enough number of individuals are protected. This is how we keep diseases such as measles or bacterial meningitis at such low levels. Successful eradication programmes have always used vaccination as a cornerstone, this is how we rid the world of smallpox, for example. About a quarter of adult badgers die each year. Annual vaccination would protect an increasing proportion of TB-free badgers, and lead to a declining level of infection. The Assembly’s own studies specifically said that vaccination is as good as culling for TB control. Vaccination by injection is also cheaper, as the badgers still have to be trapped but there is no carcass disposal. A badger cull, by contrast, could make the problem worse." I am so pleased that, like me, you find badgers to be "delightful animals" and hope you will, like me, recognise that killing them would be the wrong thing to do.
- Steve
I'm really stupid and confused - the article is about culling badgers, then goes on to describe how young people are leaving the industry, how energy prices are rocketing, and how buisnesses are closing. Did the badgers make young people leave? Are the energy prices down to bTB? Or are these things being added to bulk out an unpersuasive argument, designed to make us empathise with farmers? As for the cost of slaughtering cattle, is a badger cull free, or will it also cost me money? And who exactly is pretending that we can vaccinate infected badgers? Even a thicko like me knows that isn't how a vaccine works.
- Catherine