Quote:
Originally Posted by muldonach  How would you acount for the several instances of bTb breakdowns within closed herds and what advice would you offer to the farmer concerned as to the best way to prevent a re-occurrence? |
bTb in closed herds is an interesting one. I remember a few years ago a post on this very topic relating a story where TB in a 'closed herd' was initially blamed on
Badgers but it turned out that some bedding had been brought into the farm from another farm that had a TB breakdown a little while later. There are, of course, many other mammals that are capable of transmitting this disease which could be responsible for breakdowns in closed herds, as well as
Badgers. I've also posted on here about reseach that has shown that the bacterium responsible for TB can survive for long periods in soil and that once infected, cattle can take upto 3 years to show up as a reactor in the normal tuberculin tests. That can make it extremely difficult to trace the source of infection.
I've posted many times on this topic and fully accept that
Badgers can (and in some circumstances probably do) transmit TB to cattle. It is also true that cattle transmit TB to
Badgers. But that is not really the issue. The issue is whether a cull of
Badgers would be effective in controlling TB in cattle - and I have to say that the supporting evidence for this is very poor. If you actually LOOK at the TB stats, especially for Wales, you don't see a great rise in TB infection rates. What you DO see though is an uncovering of disease that was already present and NOT being dealt with in the cattle population. If you remove the infected cattle at a higher rate than new infections, then the disease will be brought under control. This will necessarily be expensive, as the compensation that needs to be paid will rise - but that's an inevitable consequence of dealing with the disease. I think that Governments see a
Badger cull as a cheap alternative - the costs can be loaded onto the farmers who think they're doing a good thing whereas in fact they are doing the exact opposite by not dealing with the actual problem. They can also be seen to be 'doing something', while actually sitting on their hands.
I've posted many a stat here to show that the spread of TB is governed by cattle movements and is maintained due to the type of farming prevalent in a region. The sudden rise in TB incidents in Cumbria following FMD was not due to sudden
Badger migration but re-stocking of cattle. Exchange of cattle within a region can generate hotspots very easily. The density of cattle on farms in the UK is higher that anywhere else in Europe - and guess who has the worst TB rates? This all points ot the fact that there's an enormous amount that can be done to reduce the number of TB breakdowns within farming. Someone said on this forum last year 'culling
Badgers won't work, but at least we'd be doing something' ... that seems to be the way things are going - and that's a sad day indeed.