Why no vaccination plan for cattle?

IAN Liddell-Grainger’s comments on Saturday regarding not seeing any ‘anti’s’, is because he lives, I guess, in the original area of the West Somerset cull zone which has very few numbers of badgers left.

It makes more sense for the badger protectors to walk the rights of way where there are higher densities of badgers remaining.

Ian shows with his derogatory comments about wildlife protectors, alongside his support for the cull, that he is happy to continually divide and upset his community, including the divide between farmers too.

I’m not sure what farmers Ian knows, but it is evident on the ground that there are many farmers who sign up to the cull, participate, and then get caught filling in setts, thinking that they have shot them all and by destroying what is left at the sett is acceptable.

This is against the law and many farmers and landowners live with this shame, having been found out. There is a record of badger setts across Somerset and beyond, so it is obvious who is responsible when a sett has been slurried or blocked, bulldozed, or dug out, or just used as the base for the next farm private rubbish tip, or cattle feeding station, or a decision to site the new pheasant pen in that area.

These and more have been found in our countryside by ‘anti’s’ who just love wildlife to be given a chance to thrive in their natural habitat.

Moving cattle around who are carriers is the way bTB is spread, not having accurate tests is where the dreadful epidemic has taken hold and let the farmers down. Ian knows this and it is well documented.

Accurate cattle testing, good biosecurity and animal welfare is the best way to keep a herd healthy so they do not have a predisposition for the disease, which we all know thrives in a community with overpopulation, poor housing and poor diet; just look at human history to understand this miasm.

Of course vaccination is the answer, I agree with Ian here, but why hasn’t it been rolled out for the farming community before now?

We are now in the ninth year of badger culling. I appreciate the infectious bacillus is not a virus but, considering the current pandemic, when the government chooses to, it can roll out a vast vaccination program at a click of the finger for a syringe. Why on earth hasn’t there been a vaccination programme for cattle? Many farmers must be asking this question. Why has this Conservative government told farmers to kill badgers instead?

Jo Smoldon Bridgwater, Somerset