Irish badger cull 'proved futile'

magicbastarder

A new report claims the "virtual extermination" of badgers in the Republic of Ireland has failed to stop the spread of bovine TB.

Although so many badgers have been killed that they are extinct in many areas, the level of TB in cattle is twice as high as in Britain, it says.

The study comes from Badgerwatch Ireland and the UK Badger Trust.

It was released just before the British government receives an advisory report considering a similar cull.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6653691.stm

didn't some british study find that cattle pass TB to badgers, and not vice versa?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

It didn't take much research to tell us what we knew long ago. It's unfortunate though that the report is from 2 Badger protection societies and the general public are already coming out with "They would say that wouldn't they!" and "If you fund research you always seem to get the result which suits your pre-survey opinion".

yknaa

The minister of agriculture has dismissed the report according to today's press.

Mothman

The NFU has accused the Badger Trust of twisting facts and being economical with the truth in the report it has published jointly with Badgerwatch Ireland on bovine TB and badgers in Ireland.

Far from having been a failure, as the report suggests, the Irish Government’s policy of culling badgers within two kilometres of a TB outbreak not caused by cattle movements has succeeded in reducing the number of cattle slaughtered as TB reactors from 42,000 in 2002 – when the current policy was introduced - to 24,104 in 2006 – a reduction of 42.6 per cent. The number of farms under restriction because of TB fell from 8,500 in 2002 to 6,500 in 2005.

The NFU also dismisses the Badger Trust’s claim that badgers in Ireland face “extermination”. It points out that in 2005, for example, approximately 3,250 badgers were killed out of a population estimated in 2004 at around 200,000.
Full report


There Badger Watch Report titled Ireland's Bloody Shame is 13 page PDF. I haven't read it all, but it claims that the 200,000 badger population is a 1995 figure and that a figure of 65,000 is mentioned as being the estimated population. c45,000 badgers have been killed since 1995.

r3nu4l

As a former research scientist who now works for a medical communicaitons agency that works for many top pharma companies I can honestly say that all research projects have an 'objective'.

In a massive percentage of research projects funded by certain organisations the word 'objective' can be interchanged with 'agenda'. That unfortunately is the reality

I do not know the methodology used in this research but to be honest I'd rather see results from a completely independent study. I personally doubt very much that badgers are the cause of TB spreading in cows in Ireland but I refuse to believe anything that comes from such organisations as Badgerwatch. Maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical these days but that comes from my experience so far.

King.Penguin

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055092319

Similar thread on Animals and Pet Issues.

I still think the spread of TB from badger to cattle and from cattle to badger would be better contained through good animal husbandry, hygiene and preventative measures. I think the cull was very much an over-reaction.

artieanna

r3nu4l wrote:

As a former research scientist who now works for a medical communicaitons agency that works for many top pharma companies I can honestly say that all research projects have an 'objective'.

In a massive percentage of research projects funded by certain organisations the word 'objective' can be interchanged with 'agenda'. That unfortunately is the reality

I do not know the methodology used in this research but to be honest I'd rather see results from a completely independent study. I personally doubt very much that badgers are the cause of TB spreading in cows in Ireland but I refuse to believe anything that comes from such organisations as Badgerwatch. Maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical these days but that comes from my experience so far.

I would be in agreement............. having grown up on a farm and having had many tb reactors on our farm, I would be inclined to question that tb also creates cheap meat for factorys (from reactors) plus vets and dept agri vets benefit from tb testing costs etc....Maybe I am being harsh but I seen cattle fail tb tests, and they were housed for three months in winter, and not in contact with any sort of animals...I think the badger and tb is a load of boloney!!!

magicbastarder

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn8465-badger-culls-dont-solve-tb-problem.html