No more Badger spotting holidays (From Western Telegraph)

I think it is a choice between sustaining a large population of badgers or a viable diary industry. Timescales associated with implementing a badger vaccine and seeing the benefits in an area where a large proporttion of badgers are already infected is a major problem. The rate at which dairy farmers are going out of business each year mean that it is likely that in the next 5 years the UK is likely to become significantly more dependent on cheese imports from countries such as Ireland and New Zealand. These countries are taking a more aggressive stance to controlling their wildlife vector and are seeing herd dispersols at a much slower rate than in England. In England between June 2003 and June 2004 the number of holdings with 10 or more dairy cows were reported by DEFRA to have reduced from 17,091 to 14,260. This represents a 17% drop and, without including beef herds, an average rate of 8 herds per day.

To simply blame the badgers for the decline of the british dairy industry is a bit lame. One of the biggest problems that our dairy farmers face today is that of low profitability - and that is our fault because we all want cheap milk and beef. This also affects the farmer wanting to expand his herd and discourages people from wanting to work in the industry. There are numerous other reasons why our dairy herds are in decline, and I suggest your readers should do their research before blaming the poor badger.

We should be protecting our wildlife so future generations can enjoy seeing them in the wild, and not in a zoo or stuffed in a glass cage.

To simply blame the badgers for the decline of the british dairy industry is a bit lame. One of the biggest problems that our dairy farmers face today is that of low profitability - and that is our fault because we all want cheap milk and beef. This also affects the farmer wanting to expand his herd and discourages people from wanting to work in the industry. There are numerous other reasons why our dairy herds are in decline, and I suggest your readers should do their research before blaming the poor badger.

We should be protecting our wildlife so future generations can enjoy seeing them in the wild, and not in a zoo or stuffed in a glass cage.

Barbara Prest, from your comments you obviously live in a town. Town people like you will never understand the countryside. It's fine for you going there once in a blue moon to spot wildlife and then returning home to argue that it should not be touched. The fact is there are people who actually live and work in the countryside on a daily basis. If the badgers have to be culled to protect their livelihoods then so be it. Don't forget they are animals which are not endangered. The fact that they are relatively good looking is irrelevant. How would you like it if us country folk came to your town and started arguing that brown rats should not be killed in your area? What you are doing here is exactly the same as that.

As undoubtedly beautiful, we have visited Pembrokeshire many many times over the years, but I nor my family and close friends will ever again step foot in that county from the point of the first badger being culled there (as part of Elin Jones's immoral and unjustified cull). We have informed WAG and the Pembrokeshire tourist office of this also. Let's hope that Elin Jones’s dictatorial rule on the issue comes to end on the ruling of the second appeal.

To clarify some facts...

Public opinion is against the cull - that has been proved by even Defra (the UKs' governmental department on animal disease control, welfare and environment etc).

The most current scientific evidence (ISG report) is against the cull - the English government cancelled all further culls in England based on the ISG recommendations.

Note - The ISG is the independent study group who has made recommendations regarding badger culling and bTB based on intensive scientific studies of culling over a number of recent years - at great cost to the taxpayer and the UK badger population.

The study was performed to determine the best way to tackle bTB, and also to determine for once and for all whether culling badgers would have a long term beneficial affect. Up to that point 40 years of repeated badger culling (consequenting in the deaths of nearly 200,000 badgers - most of which were not even infected) had failed to touch the problem. Who over those 40 years pushed for the repeated pointless culls you might ask?.. well, the farmers and their friends in government. Who's pushing the current welsh cull you might ask?.. well, the farmers and their friends in government - primarily the all powerful Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru AM from a farming background).

Elin Jones & Co continues to cherry pick the ISG report to suit her, and her farmer friends/lobby's personal objectives. She and WAG also churns out misinformation to the public. You will never hear her or WAG mention parts of the ISG report they don't wish you to hear, those parts that are detrimental to 'their aims.' For instance, they always quote the ISG's findings that culling badgers could be beneficial if culling took place over large areas. What Elin Jones & Co doesn't mention is that the report goes on to say , in summary, that such culling would not be practical or moral, and had two many unknowns in terms of cost, environment affect, ecosystem affect, and the consequenting behavioural change of badgers. The ISG therefore concluded that culling on such a large scale (as would be the case with the Pembrokeshire cull) as a means of controlling TB was NOT an option in controlling bTB.

Elin Jones & Co also doesn't mention in their media statements that John Bourne, who headed the ISG (the top man!), stated that to cull badgers (protected species) in such large numbers would be "Totally unacceptable"

Elin Jones & Co also spout out the fact that when preparation activities of the cull are being implemented, such as surveying setts ready for trap laying, then the surveyors are going about their lawful duties, and should not be impeded. Anyone who does so are seen as criminals and duly arrested, immediately (as in Newport). However, who recently just made those cull-tailored laws that allow government officials to access peoples' land, and kill the badgers there, whether the land owners like it or not? Guess?... Elin Jones and Co - all on their very own!
Worse still, she has empowered herself to do this for the whole of Wales, not just North Pembrokeshire!

All these are facts that Elin Jones & Co would prefer you not to know - don't be fooled.

When I put such questions and comments to Plaid Cymru, they failed to respond, when put to WAG they side-stepped the answers - that is the extent that our government in Wales is beginning to abuse their power - vote to give them more? er... when hell freezes over perhaps!


Elin Jones & Co have given the impression via the media that the number of landowners 'against' the cull on their land make up only a very few (a drop in the ocean?). Whoops! - wrong again. Last week, just before the second appeal, a letter was handed to WAG which was signed by 309 small-holders and commercial farmers (representing 180 holdings) expressing their opposition to the cull. There are 900 holdings in the cull area – 180 against is hardly a drop in the ocean as WAG would have you believe.

If WAG tries to convince you that the English government, via Defra, are also now going ahead to cull again in England (so justifying WAG’s contradictory stance to the ISG's recommendations)... ask them when! If you get a straight answer can you let me know via this comment facility - you'll be the first!

WAGs' cull is costing (us) millions and, yet, they don't even know the cost-benefits - ask them! If you get a straight answer can you let me know via this comment facility - you'll be the first!

The welsh cull is not part of a scientifically and carefully designed strategy to reduce the incidence of bTB in North Pembrokeshire - it's another pilot! ie. designed to kill all the badgers within the entire area (whether TB infected or not) over five years - which incidentally leaves newly born cubs to starve after trapping and shooting their mothers (contrary to the Protection of Badger Act 1992). Then, after the five years analyse the results to see if it's worth carrying on with further culls.

Note - The ISG study just did that!!

The welsh badger cull is but one control measure of WAGs’ TB eradication programme. Other control measures of the programme already being implemented in the cull area include better control of cattle movement and better testing for TB (both of which were also recommended by the ISG, plus vaccination of cattle and badgers - which is already being trialled and is expected to be in widespread use by around 2014/15). Already, to Elin Jones's credit it must be said, the incidence of TB in Wales is already falling as a result – and without one badger being culled! But then again, how can the effectiveness of her pilot badger cull be measured after five years amongst the data from the other control measures? Quite simply - it can't, it can only be measured specifically if her cull was performed in isolation of any other control measure, and in a different areas. Also, the cull would need to be carried out on an active, proactive, and inactive basis.

That is exactly how the ISG study was implemented, and that is why its findings are accurate and inarguable.

The danger is that ELin Jones & Co will announce in five years that their eradication programme has been very successful, and so, the culling of the badgers must have contributed significantly, and so, they were right all along, and so, carry on culling in the rest of Wales!

To save taxpayers money in those future culls, why not allocate licences to farmers that will allow them to shoot badgers on their land themselves - under strict control conditions of course, which of course (tee hee) will be closely supervised and enforced by WAG. Penalties for contravention will be severe (tee hee). Such culprits for example can expect the same sentencing as that imposed on a Stackpole farmer, and former magistrate and high sheriff of Dyfed, who, in December of last year (2009( did...

… trap a badger (illegal), using a locking snare (illegal), who then shot it (illegal), who then dumped the dead animal (illegal).

What was the terrible crime committed by this wild and dangerous disease-ridden beast? – it was damaging the owners’ garden! What was the punishment – fined £1500 – apparently less than a months’ income to the landowner.
What was an aspect actually used in his defence?.... the landowner referred to the Welsh Assembly’s planned badger cull, involving trapping and shooting badgers, and asked the court to bear this in mind when sentencing… boom-boom!
You can see it coming… don’t be fooled.
PS: If Elin Jones, WAG or their TB team can refute the validity or accuracy of any of my above and previous comments then I will post up retractions as soon as they get in touch. (this is not the first time I have posted the above comments – but I am yet to hear from them).

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

Henry David Thoreau

stix wrote:
Barbara Prest, from your comments you obviously live in a town. Town people like you will never understand the countryside. It's fine for you going there once in a blue moon to spot wildlife and then returning home to argue that it should not be touched. The fact is there are people who actually live and work in the countryside on a daily basis. If the badgers have to be culled to protect their livelihoods then so be it. Don't forget they are animals which are not endangered. The fact that they are relatively good looking is irrelevant. How would you like it if us country folk came to your town and started arguing that brown rats should not be killed in your area? What you are doing here is exactly the same as that.

Wolves, Bears, Sea Eagles, Scottish Wildcat, Lynx, Ospreys, Beavers, Red Kites all persecuted by man and driven to extinction in this Country or nearly to it. Why because of mans selfish interest. Who says that man has the right to say what lives and dies. In the Year of Bio diversity, the WAG and a bunch of greedy farmers are willing to wipe out another native species of this Country all in the name of profits and upset the natural Bio Diversity of the area.
Each and every creature has its part to play in the delicate bio diversity of the planet.

MartiB, I'm not saying that badgers should be wiped out and there is no danger of this happening as they remain a protected, albeit common species. They simply need to be managed in the same way as rats need to be managed in towns. How would you react if you owned a restaurant and you found a rat living in it? Would you "preserve it rather than destroy it" as you suggest above? I think not!

stix wrote:
MartiB, I'm not saying that badgers should be wiped out and there is no danger of this happening as they remain a protected, albeit common species. They simply need to be managed in the same way as rats need to be managed in towns. How would you react if you owned a restaurant and you found a rat living in it? Would you "preserve it rather than destroy it" as you suggest above? I think not!

Badgers are not classed as vermin under DEFRA regulations, for that matter neither are foxes.I just do not see how you can draw comparisons with rats.
Your post actually made me smile thinking of hoards of badgers over running my local Mc Donalds. Now that would be something for Ms E Jones to sort.