Thinking about next week’s Game Fair at Blenheim, I remember a few years ago sitting next to the Telegraph columnist Charlie Brooks at lunch on the Friday. Mr Brooks had just recently written a piece slagging off the RSPB so we had a few things to chat about and the conversation roamed over the usual ground favoured by the ‘real country person’ – badgers, crows and buzzards.
It was all good knock-about fun and Mr Brooks’s strongly-held opinions were not unfamiliar to me. But we did have safer ground to retreat to as Charlie Brooks was once a very good national hunt jockey and then a pretty good racehorse trainer. In between asking how you could possibly have too many buzzards I asked Charlie about horses like the great grey Suny Bay which he trained to a second place in the Grand National in the 1997 in the bomb-threat delayed race. I pointed out that I would have won more money that day if Mr Brooks had a done a slightly better job!
I watched that race at the end of the working day with the then Chief Exec Barbara Young in the RSPB Press Office. Barbara had backed the winner, Lord Gyllene, whereas my money had been on Charlie’s Suny Bay. The next year, 1998, Suny Bay was back again at Aintree but the heavens opened and this time my money was on the winner, Earth Summit who had previously won the Welsh National and already had the Scottish National in his collection too.
I see that Charlie has written about badgers and so, no doubt, he is wondering whether there will be a badger-related announcement on Monday or Tuesday next week. The government is running out of time before Parliament chucks it in for the summer on Wednesday. Perhaps the furore over the News of the World has provided an excuse for delaying the announcement until the autumn – would you want to be the government who announced a badger cull? David Cameron may not fancy being the Prime Minister who is known as being ‘Too kind to Rupert, too nasty to Brock’.
Charlie Brooks’s partner Rebekah worked for Rupert Murdoch until just recently – maybe their weekend won’t be quite perfect.
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I see David Attenborough has spoken out against a cull. Obviously he’s no scientist on the matter but if you can’t convince people like him then it’s going to be an uphill struggle to convince the public.
Gert – indeed. He might be wrong but he won’t be ignored by the public. And he wants us to be counting butterflies this weekend – not very good weather for butterflies here in east Northants today.
Sir David Attenborough FRS wrote the forward to Ernest Neal’s classic on Badgers – The Natural History of Badgers- 1986 in which the Mad Atter says “The name Ernest Neal is linked permanently with badgers – The pages that follow show just why”
On page 201 of this book EN says:-
“Understandably, such drastic action (the gassing of setts) against the badger was looked upon with horror by naturalists and conservationists but it was recognised by all responsible conservation bodies that a serious situation had arisen and with regret the Ministry’s action was considered justified ”
Well – when and why did the Mad Atter change his mind?
Mark
Your ‘badger’ blog has received a number of additions / responses since the original publishing date and I would suggest that regular readers might benefit from revisiting.
I point out Pro Bourne’s ISG gestimate of just 33% of all TB incidents were due to badgers when decades of data were accumulated and show a minimum of 75% and in trials where gassing setts was performed – it was 100% due to badgers. Bourne just didn’t bother using this information because it was obvious to all that it would have negated – at a stroke – the result that his masters – the politicians – wanted.
We can all debate opinions but these are facts which when shown to even-balanced individuals indicate the following
That:-
1. As Krebs said in his 1997 report – the badger population represents a reservoir of disease
2. At least 75% and in most other instances TB incidents are due to diseased badgers
3. Complete culling of diseased badgers ceases bTB in the local cattle
Aaron has (still) failed to explain Thornbury and Ben Bradshaw’s reply.
So Aaron – again – how do you explain Thornbury then and Ben Bradshaw’s response to a written Parliamentary Question – saying that no other factor – other than culling badgers – resulted in 10 years of freedom from bTB in cattle?
As for an imminent announcement – Cameron has problem said to Spelman – “Not now dear – can’t you see I’m busy”
I have had to make response to land agents complaints about National England’s ‘Upland Vision’ where they are asking for 25% tree cover by 2060. Their main concern has been loss of grazing. If you have ever seen most of the Lake District hills they are covered by Badger setts and Buzzards They are also covered with bracken which is where most of these trees will be grown so no loss of grazing. In fact if the planting was done right there would be an increase in grazing as the stock would be able to move under the trees.
Prof Krebs – the scientist who instigated the 10-year Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT) has insisted that a badger cull would not be an effective way of controlling bovine TB (bTB).
He was commenting on the publication of a DEFRA report suggesting that, based on the findings of the trial, culling badgers would reduce bTB incidence in cattle by approximately 12-16 per cent over a nine year period.
“You cull intensively for at least four years, you will have a net benefit of reducing TB in cattle of 12 per cent to 16per cent. So you leave 85 per cent of the problem still there, having gone to a huge amount of trouble to kill a huge number of badgers. It doesn’t seem to be an effective way of controlling the disease.”
But that is not what the man said in his observations in his report which instigated the RBCT two decades ago.
In Prof Krebs’ Report we read that Krebs observes, quite correctly, by stating facts, that:
7.8.3 The gassing and clean ring strategies, in effect, eliminated or severely reduced badger populations from an area and appear to have had the effect of reducing or eliminating TB in local cattle populations. The effect lasted for many years after the cessation of culling, but eventually TB returned
That’s ‘eventually’ as in more than a decade in most cases, by the way.
Acrid with corruption methinks!
Come on Aaron you’re losing the battle! Or have you given up!
I have recently visited Hermaness National Nature Reserve on Unst in the Shetland Islands. There are around 700 pairs of breeding Great Skuas on this NNR which is an extremely high number for a smallish area. Unbelievably there is also a population of feral cats on the same reserve. All predate the breeding seabirds and the moorland breeding birds. Apparently the numbers of cats are not controlled and neither are the numbers of Great Skuas. No wonder then that the breeding Whimbrel numbers are decreasing on Unst. My reasoning is that if you are to protect a certain species ie Great Skua then you should also decide on a maximum number for a given area and cull the excess, otherwise how can you protect threatened populations of other birds such as the Whimbrel.
The solution to the badger TB problem is for the government to encourage research into the mechanical/biological production of milk from grass without the need for cows and wingeing dairy farmers. In this time of high technological expertise this cannot be too hard to achieve.
Hi Dave
“mechanical/biological production of milk from grass without the need for cows and wingeing dairy farmers” ??
It’s been done already – we call it “whisky”, “stout” and “best bitter”
Cheers