Protect our wildlife and ecosystems
I WOULD like to respond to Ian Liddell-Grainger’s recent letter regarding badger culling. Mr Liddell-Grainger states that badger culling is effective in reducing bTB in cattle and that it is necessary to continue with this policy until a cattle vaccine is deployed because ‘we cannot continue to have thousands of healthy cattle exposed to a deadly risk from badgers’. The science has already establised that cattle-to-cattle transmission of bTB is by far the greatest cause of herd breakdowns, due largely to the inadequate skin test, and that cattle pass bTB to badgers, as evidenced by badgers found to have a strain of bTB found only in Northern Ireland and brought to this country by infected cattle.
Dr Iain McGill is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons who is undertaking research into bovine TB. According to an open letter from Dr McGill to the Prime Minister in September 2020, badger killing is ineffective. Analysis of data released by APHA demonstrated that the prevalence of bTB among cattle herds in the pilot cull zones had either increased or remained static over five years.
He stated, as has been previously demonstrated, that badgers are not heavily infected with bovine TB. The epidemiological evidence shows that a vastly greater proportion of cattle herd breakdowns is attributed to badgers than is actually the case. The routine skin test in cattle is ineffective and failure by Defra to introduce appropriate testing methodology ‘ensures that bTB continues to spread throughout the UK by the movements of infected cattle that have not been effectively screened, coupled with a lack of riskbased trading practices, inadequate on-farm biosecurity and ineffective slurry control’. The badger culling policy is ‘discredited and ineffective’.
For many years we have been promised that a cattle vaccine is five years away, and still it is five years away, though currently undergoing field trials. If we can create and deploy a vaccine for humans against Covid-19 in a matter of months, surely it should not take another five years to deploy one for cattle?
It is a pity that Mr Liddell-Grainger finds it necessary to denigrate those people who have different views. Working together to help farmers and also to protect our wildlife and ecosystems would be a more constructive approach.
We are in a dire situation on this planet. The wholescale destruction and loss of wildlife and ecosystems has set us on a path to extinction, and if Mr Liddell-Grainger thinks that is being over-dramatic I would suggest he reads David Attenborough’s book A Life on Our Planet, which sets out in stark detail just what we have done and what we need to do urgently to rectify the mess we have made.
Re-wilding is the most important strategy we must deploy, not further killing of our precious and diminishing wildlife. There are very many farmers who already appreciate this and are making huge efforts to farm in a more sustainable and wildlife-friendly way and this, I believe, should be encouraged and supported by our leaders.
Hazel Wood Axbridge, Somerset