It’s December tomorrow so you should be posting your Christmas cards soon. About a dozen people have ordered sets of these cards so far and have told me that they will send them to Defra, Natural England, the NFU and David Cameron as a protest against the badger cull.
If you’d like to purchase a set of six cards (two of each design) then payment by cheque or PayPal is accepted – contact me at [email protected] . Six cards, including postage and packing, cost £12 which includes a small donation to the Badger Trust.
If you would like me to send a single card directly to any of Owen Paterson at Defra, Peter Kendall at the NFU, David Cameron at Downing St or Dave Webster at Natural England then a payment of £1.50 per card will get that done (but you’ll never see the card yourself so you’ll have to trust me). Again, that price includes a donation to the Badger Trust. And again, email me at [email protected] .
You will have noticed that the very appearance of these cards led to the abandonment of the Gloucestershire badger cull. Think what sending a few more might do?!
Cards designed by Ralph Underhill.
How about sending the cards to the eight (8) families in Gloucestershire that all have a familiy member receiving treatment to deal with catching TB from their cats?
Saving the lives of pathogen-sick badgers is so obviously more important!
What to do you call somebody who encourages the spread of TB in wildlife – apart from stupid?
You’re right! A Conservationist !!
Evidently time for a Gloucestershire cat cull.
OK Trimbush, lets have it your way. In your ideal world, ALL the badgers in the British Isles have been exterminated – not one single animal remains – it is classed as “extinct”.
Bovine TB though, lets say, is still to be found in pockets of the cattle herd. What do you do then ? Which other indiginous species of wildlife do you turn your guns on ? Because, Heaven forbid, you will not scrutinise your own sorry industry for the solution…
I see St Monty of Don has fallen foul of the crowd-sourced hate mob this week and has closed his Tw*tface account because of the outpouring of abuse – because he declined to join a march and expressed some reasonable opinions. He should have noted the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. describing bigotry: “The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract.”
I’m getting mightly fed up of both sides of this argument misrepresenting each other. For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t believe that people on the “anti-cull” side of the fence are “pro TB” in some way, and similarly those on the “pro-cull” side are not “anti wildlife”. The idea that anyone would want to encourage the spread of TB is ridiculous.
What seems to be getting lost in the shouting is that (a few nutters aside) we all want the same thing here – a countryside free of TB. There are clearly some differences which are very strongly felt, but if we remember what we are all aiming for, we might be able to make some progress here.
Whether you like it or not (Trimbush, I guess I mean you) the farming community needs the good will of the general public because we buy your products. In particular, those from the conservation movement are the sort of people who understand that you should pay more for food so that it can be produced ethically and sustainably. These are exactly the sort of people that you want on your side.
And whether you like it or not (Lancastrian, this probably means you) farmers are managing of a lot of the countryside, and are making decisions which affect much of our wildlife. So guess what? These are exactly the sort of people that you want on your side.
Now that the cull has paused, I think we would be better off looking for a way forward that we can all support, because the current situation is deeply unsatisfactory for all of us.
So, sorry Mark, I can’t support your Christmas cards. You are heading in the wrong direction. We need leadership which will bring people together, not push them further apart.
Tim – welcome and thank you for your comment.
Tim,yours is a very balanced view,I find it sad that with both sides holding such differing opinions we are not helping wildlife,Badgers or cattle.
Surely seeing as it seems certain a effective vaccine is a long way off and will not work on infected Badgers we have to find a way that where infected cattle are culled then Badgers on that farm are also likely to be infected and are culled perhaps the sett sealed as well to stop incomers.
Cannot see how we can let the disease get worse each decade.
Tim – your comment is one of the most well reasoned statements that I have come across in this whole sorry situation. I think if more people had your attitude we would be a lot closer to finding a solution. I am a BSc Wildlife Conservation and Ecology student and I often get misrepresented as somebody who is “pro – tb” and it is extremely frustrating. Scientific know – how and some good old fashioned listening on both sides would go a long way I’m sure of it 🙂
Jodie – welcome!
Thank you Mark! I’d just like to point out I accidently liked my own comment – I am still getting the hang of this blog business! I’ve only recently come across your blog Mark through Chris Packam’s Twitter feed and I find his approach to conservation unique and truthful. I have only read through some of your comments on other subjects on your blog however I find your approach similiarly truthful.
I have always been interested in wildlife and conservation however I must admit I entered into my education 5 years ago slightly blinkered. I believed most issues were black and white and solutions could be found to problems without too much impact. So when I was hit with some of the hard facts of conservation, well, it was a difficult pill to swallow. For a long time I felt something had broken in my beliefs. After all, all I had been fed through fuzzy documetaries and biased articles was that “yes, animals are in decline due to A and B but it’s not all bad”… Which, to an extent is true, but nobody seemed to be willing to lay down the hard facts that need to be dealt with. If these issues are never discussed then how can people ever be educated? I’ve seen some people on here get pretty het-up when presented with a difficult comment by yourself – but I think more people like you and Chris and hopefully myself (one day!) Need to talk more openly about wildlife conservation and the issues that people are skating over to avoid scaring off the people who write the cheques, because if you don’t… It’s never going to change… Anyway rant over! 🙂
I was informed several years ago by a farmer, that roe deer can be infected or be a carrier for Tb. Does this have any threat to cattle. or has anyone investigated this connection