I am puzzled as to why it is so difficult to assess the health of the
Badgers in a particular sett on an infected farm. When
Badgers are released from wildlife rescue centres it has to be according to "the
Badger Protocol" as follows "
Badgers should only be released following three consecutive negative blood test results." These tests are done on live
Badgers.
But noone wants to carry out live testing of
Badgers it seems. Only on dead ones. The removal of all
Badgers from all setts is being proposed whether healthy or not within the pilot cull area.
Today I spoke with a farmer who said that in the 70s because one of their herd had a reactor, MAFF came and took 3 of the
Badgers on their property away for testing (and had enormous difficulty catching them), the rest of the sett ran away.
The farmer would have liked to have the
Badgers back as they were OK, but MAFF said not possible. The farm had no other bTB problems since.
Is this to do with lack of holding facilities for
Badgers. Or is it more expedient for various reasons to remove all the
Badgers and simpler to kill them than test them.