Not the answer (From Malvern Gazette)

Not the answer

12:20pm Sunday 5th February 2012 in Letters

SO we are yet again going down the badger culling road which has proved time and again, at enormous cost to the taxpayer, not to work, regardless of whether “done correctly” or not.

Statistically and scientifically it has been found that culling badgers has little or no effect on TB levels in cattle.

What would have an effect would be timely TB testing using the more sensitive gamma interferon blood test rather than the traditional skin test which misses about one in three infected animals.

What else would help would be compulsory rather than advisory biosecurity measures to be carried out by farmers wherever applicable. A simple measure freely available at markets is the disinfectant foot bath which many farmers make no use of at all.

It is rather cynical to bring up badger welfare as a reason for shooting them since it will not be known whether they are infected until they are dead, especially as previous culls have shown that the majority were perfectly healthy.

Basically bovine TB is a problem because we expect far too much from our farm animals, dairy cows in particular. They are brought to early maturity with hormones, they are pregnant and giving milk for nine out of every 12 months, their calves are mostly removed within a couple of days of birth, sometimes shot within sight of them, and within three months they are impregnated again.

They are expected to produce three times as much milk as they would naturally which, along with being pregnant, is a heavy weight to carry. A lifespan of 25 years has been reduced to five when they are sent for slaughter. Small wonder they are open to any infection going.

ROBERTA BALFOUR
Malvern