Badger Cull Part 1: Introduction to Science

[mickygrif]

Dont forget to Watch Part 2 Civil Liberties (See Above) You will be SHOCKED

[megasynchronicity1]

Is there a petition we can sign instead of giving money?

[mickygrif]

@megasynchronicity1 The best action is to contact your local MP and if in Wales the local candidates for the Welsh Assembly Elections. Details on the Pembrokeshireagainstthecull website.

[pduffy4]

If they don;t want cows to get TB then they shouldn't vaccinate the cows. Vaccines cause disease and auto-immune diseases!!!!!!!!!!!

Vaccines should all be banned!!!!!

[GavinNPembs]

Culling also has to take place every year, and is intrinsically more expensive. To vaccinate you just inject the badger in the trapping cage, mark it and release it. To cull you have to transfer it to a killing cage, shoot it, remove the body, store it, post mortem it and then incinerate it, and sterilize the killing cage.

We know the Oral vaccine works because it has been tested in the lab and the field. The full irish field trial comes to a close next year, I think.

[mickygrif]

I think West Wales had quite low levels until they started restocking from Devon (as happened to my friend who is still on restriction years later and he doesnt blame the badger just the lack of premovement testing untill very recently.)

DEFRA state Oral Vaccine trials are very promising.

Tourism is a very significant business here and farmhouse B @B is widespread. Our fear is that tourists will shun the whole of West Wales as our image for wildlife tourism is damaged

[skodapickup]

So vaccination will cost £6000 each until 2014 ,how much will oral vaccine cost and how do you know it works .

Cumbria has low levels of TB despite many cattle being moved there from west Wales after 2001.

One other thing thats puzzling me is why are PAC so keen to talk up a potential boycott by tourists ,I could understand if it was farmhouse B&B what have guest houses in the towns got to do with TB ,personally I think they will blame you when it happens just as much as the farmers .

[mickygrif]

Culling is spread over 5 years and The Welsh Assembly agree that culling is more expensive than vaccination . Vaccination will be become very cheap when an oral version is available in 2014. The epidemiology of bovine tb is little understand. But interestingly farmers are now being advised not to bring in cattle from hotspots no matter how many times they have been tested.

[skodapickup]

1.If badgers need to be vaccinated each year at a cost of about £2000 how come it is cheaper than culling which is probably the same method of catching/trapping and needs only to be done once,which for some reason costs double.

2.With cattle movements moving freely through England & Wales it makes very little sense why TB is concentrated in some areas and not in every county in England & Wales.

[mickygrif]

Matt You seem to have ignored the opening part of the film. 70% of Badgers in this cull are healthy according to The Welsh Assembly. There are many reasons why TB is a problem in certain areas. The film tries to explain some of them. The Cattle controls imposed in West Wales have helped reduce cattle slaughtered by over 40% in just two years. PS Many of the objectors to this cull are farmers, so its not a" farmer V the rest" issue.

[mattshotgun]

As the badgers have no natural predetor there numbers keep increasing, which could be why we are seeing the increased problems now, compared to 10+ years ago. every thing needs a balance and the badgers natural habbitat which as you see is the woodland is becoming over populated and therefor they are wandering onto productive grassland, and there lies the problem.

People saying about the dairy herds increasing in size, they have had to to earn a living from the low price recived for milk

[mattshotgun]

the general public and wildlife people think farmers want to see every badger dead, well this is wrong, as if they have clean badgers they are good animals, as shown by the dr's family farm been clear of tb because badgers been clean.

it is no point spending money and causing stress to cattle and famer by testing and culling if the resevoir of innoculum in the wildlife is not also controlled.

[mattshotgun]

as far as i understand the badgers will need to be caught every year to be vaccinated.

why has the tb problems increased then when cattle are been tested in some areas every year, at the maximum interval, and to go off farm in these areas they have to of passed a tb test within the last 60 days. where as areas more free to move cattle where badger/wildlife numbers are low they do not have the problems with tb.

[windmill895]

how do bent Government reports get away with it like this

[skodapickup]

1. Is it true that the badger vaccine only lasts about 12 months and needs to be done annually

2.If cattle movements are the reason for infection ,why is BTB concentrated in small areas of the country ,and why is Cumbria not the worst affected area of the country after the biggest migration of livestock this country has ever seen after the 2001 FMD outbreak .