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Badger Trust welcomes renewed focus on cattle measures to lower bovine TB
The Badger Trust has welcomed new cattle measures introduced by the Government aimed at reducing the spread of bovine TB.
From the 6th April 2016 onwards, new legislation will require farmers in the Low TB Risk Area of England to arrange for post-movement testing of cattle coming from the rest of England and Wales.
All herds in the High Risk Area of England affected by a new TB breakdown, will now need to pass two strict tests before movement restrictions are lifted. This will increase the chances of finding all TB infected cattle and reduce recurrent breakdowns.
The Government is also funding free pre-sale TB tests to any herd owner in the Low Risk Areas, selling twenty or more cattle in a single purchase. This is aimed at providing additional assurance for buyers and to mitigate the risk of undetected TB cattle spreading the disease to new herds.
The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) will also start offering farmers the option of private Interferon Gamma blood tests, to diagnose TB under certain conditions subject to prior approval from the APHA.
Commenting on the new cattle measures the CEO of the Badger Trust, Dominic Dyer said:
"For the past 5 years we have been telling the Government to stop playing the badger blame game and focus on the real cause of the spread of bovine TB, which is cattle. We therefore welcome these new cattle measures aimed at reducing the risk of moving diseased cattle around the country, but they do not go far enough. So far the Government has wasted over £25 million of public money killing mostly TB free badgers, in a culling policy which is failing on both scientific and humaneness grounds. This figure could rapidly rise to over £100 million over the next 5 years, if badger culling is extended to new areas of the country.
The money being wasted on badger culling should be diverted to providing farmers with free access to Interferon Gamma blood tests. As well as funding more effective gates and fences on farms to prevent interaction between wildlife and cattle, also to introduce an annual TB testing system across all of England, as is currently in place in Wales.
Unlike badger culling, these cattle measures have been proven to significantly reduce bovine TB and offer a far better return on the use of public funds, for both the tax payer and the farmer."
Commenting on the response from the farming industry to the new cattle measures, the Chair of the Badger Trust, Peter Martin said:
"We are very disappointed to see the farming lobby is calling into question the need for such control measures, in view of their impact on cattle trading. If they are serious about tackling the social and economic burden of bovine TB, the farming industry must accept that killing badgers is a dangerous distraction from dealing with the spread of the disease in cattle. The vast body of scientific research has yet to identify a clear badger-to cattle infection path and other peer reviewed studies have shown that badgers avoid pasture and farm buildings containing cattle. In the absence of proper scientific information and perhaps an inherent unwillingness to blame themselves or their cattle, farmers are blaming badgers instead."
Sadly badgers are usually in the news for all the wrong reasons; persecution, cruelty, illlness.
It's a nice change therefore to have a fun story about badgers...
The BBC reported last week that a badger spotted on the runway at Newquay airport in Cornwall delayed a plane landing. A happy ending both for the plane and its passengers, and for the badger!
Here is their story:
A badger on an airport runway forced a passenger plane to abort its landing.
The flight from Gatwick to Newquay was an estimated 300ft (90m) off the ground when the wild animal was spotted.
Passenger Pete Atkinson said there was a tense five-minute gap between the aircraft climbing sharply away from the runway and the pilot announcing the badger's presence.
The airport said it was a case of being "cautious in the interest of safety".
Mr Atkinson, a freelance cameraman, said: "We were on the final approach when all of a sudden the under-carriage was lifted back up and the engines revved up.
Roadkill
"People went quiet and started to look out of the window as we headed out over the sea."
About five minutes later, the pilot announced the diversion of the aircraft carrying about 60 people was due to a badger being seen on the runway.
Mr Atkinson said passengers then laughed and made jokes about roadkill.
FlyBe flight 806 was due to land at 21:15 GMT on Sunday was delayed by around 15 minutes.
A spokesman for Cornwall Airport Newquay said there was "a suspected badger sighted on the runway by the bird control unit".
The spokesman said the aircraft landed safely following a full check of the runway.
The Badger Trust has today (11th February 2016) issued this press release reporting the good news from Wales about their badger vaccination programme.
Government report confirms badger vaccination is working and a year break will not result in any increase in TB in badgers
The Badger Trust has welcomed a report by the Animal & Plant Health Agency for the Welsh Government on the success of its badger vaccination project.
The report was commissioned after the decision by the Welsh Government to temporarily halt badger vaccination due to a global shortage of BCG TB vaccine. The work was performed in order to determine the most likely effects of not using the BCG vaccine for badgers in 2016, after successfully using the trap and inject approach with BCG for 4 years between 2011 and 2015.
The analysis simulated a variety of different badger vaccination strategies to manage bovine TB within the Intensive Action Area in Wales. It used a current badger and cattle bTB model that has been repeatedly peer reviewed and published in the scientific literature used for reporting to DEFRA, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments.
The report found that 4 years of continuous badger vaccination has substantially reduced the prevalence of TB in badgers and this decline would continue over a ten year period although the benefit of each later year of vaccination was less than in earlier years.
Due to the group immunity effect, a 1 year interruption in badger vaccination in 2016 was not found to result in any increase in the prevalence of TB in badgers.
Commenting on the findings of the report the Chief Executive of the Badger Trust Dominic Dyer said:
“We are delighted to see confirmation that badger vaccination is leading to a substantial reduction in the prevalence of TB in badgers and that any temporary halt while the global stocks of BCG vaccine recover, will not lead to an increase in the spread of the disease in badgers.
I am disappointed to see the Farmers Union of Wales calling for an end to badger vaccination in the Intensive Action Area in Wales on the grounds that the cost of £700 per badger is a ‘waste of public money’, when DEFRA is spending over £7,000 per badger on a disastrous badger cull policy in England, without testing any of the badgers killed for TB.
Badger vaccination is scientifically proven to work and has huge public and political support in England and Wales. It plays a key role in bringing conservation and wildlife protection groups together with farmers and landowners in a spirit of mutual trust and confidence. It’s a perfect example of David Cameron's "Big Society" in action"
The Chairman of the Badger Trust Peter Martin said
"Rather than attack the Welsh Government for vaccinating badgers against TB, the Farmers Union of Wales should be celebrating its success. They should be calling on DEFRA and the NFU in England to follow the Welsh example of reducing bovine TB by focusing on improved cattle testing and movement controls. New incidents of bovine TB in cattle are now down by 28% in Wales with a 45% cut in the number of cattle being slaughtered. This now leaves 94% of the Welsh herd TB free, without killing any badgers.”
There is to be a public meeting in Hereford to discuss opposing any roll-out of the badger cull to Herefordshire.
The meeting will take place on Friday 19th February at 7pm at the Friends (Quaker) Meeting House, 21 King Street, Hereford HR4 9BX.
You can find the Herefordshire group on Facebook: No Herefordshire Cull, or email them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
It would be great for people in Shropshire to support our neighbours in Herefordshire. We have to keep hoping Shropshire won't be targeted next.
A Jab Well Done
Shropshire Badger Group have described as “a resounding success” their first full year of offering free badger vaccinations against bovine tuberculosis (bTB) to farmers and landowners around the county. Bovine tuberculosis is a serious, slow-growing respiratory disease of cattle which can also be transmitted to wildlife.
“Needled” by the fact that thousands of perfectly healthy badgers had already been experimentally slaughtered in parts of Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset as part of Government attempts to fight cattle TB, and appalled at the prospect of hired gunmen roaming around their local countryside at night if the badger cull were brought to Shropshire, the unpaid volunteers of Shropshire Badger Group decided in 2014 to put their expertise, resources and funds into their own badger vaccination scheme.
A total of 41 badgers across 9 sites around Shropshire have now been vaccinated during 2015 by specially trained and licensed volunteer vaccinators and their assistants, all members of Shropshire Badger Group.
A spokesman for the Group explained that the work involved braving steep hillsides, unsociable hours, and weather conditions that ranged from blistering sunshine to torrential downpours.
The spokesman continued: “Government research has shown that not only does vaccination significantly reduce the direct risk of an individual badger developing the disease, but it also provides some indirect immunity to unvaccinated badger cubs. Not every individual badger needs to be given the vaccine, which is similar to the BCG vaccine used in humans. If more than a third of the adult badgers in a social group are vaccinated, the risk of the disease developing in unvaccinated cubs is reduced by 79% and this means that eventually the total badger population is likely to become immune to TB.”
The badger vaccination initiative had already been publicly endorsed by Shropshire NFU representative Oliver Cartwright, and just last month it received the personal blessing of North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson live on air during Radio Shropshire’s ‘In the Hot Seat’ programme with presenter Jim Hawkins.
Shropshire Badger Group’s spokesman summarised: “We are dismayed and disappointed by the continuing delays in implementing the obvious solution to bovine TB, which is to vaccinate the cattle themselves. We know that there is a scientifically proven cattle vaccine available, but that its deployment is being obstructed by political shenanigans. That’s why we brought in our own badger vaccination programme and we shall be continuing with it in 2016. We believe our scheme makes a positive contribution in the fight to control bovine TB and to help the farming community. We are always keen to hear from anyone who would like to get involved with our work in any way, including donations from well-wishers. We can be contacted via our helpline on 01743 271999, our website www.shropshirebadgergroup.co.uk, our Facebook page, or even our Twitter account @shropsbadgers.”
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