Wombat Diet

The Telegraph has a nice picture of a couple of badgers among some bluebells here (now imagine meeting this strikingly handsome animal on a moonlit path at night).

The accompanying story, however, is a sorry one. Cattle farmers, as always, want to slaughter badgers to control tuberculosis in cattle. We only want to “cull the sick badgers” they say, and politicians who have previously made fools of themselves in their anxiety to appease the farming lobby are all ears. (That foolish incident, and other food scandals, led to a collapse of public trust and, ultimately, to the creation of an independent food safety authority free of producer interests.) The Environment Secretary, Mr.Milliband, has reportedly written to the cabinet supporting a cull on badgers, but he is aware that the public may be outraged. Other politicians have joined the call.

The fact that hundreds of thousands of people have recently stayed up watching badgers and other wildlife on live TV late at night is a delight and should be taken by politicians, like a badger’s stripes, as a warning. The badger has friends, as well as ignorant enemies.

The facts are as follows:

• Yes, badgers can and do suffer tuberculosis and they may spread it to cattle (the reverse is also true)
• Farmers receive compensation whenever cattle, who are routinely tested for TB, are destroyed

But for the farmers this is not enough. They always want more. So… death to the badgers!

Many are killed illegally as it is by gassing and with poison. The farmers have enrolled many veterinarians to the ranks of the would-be badger cullers. This is another sorry example of glove puppetry by the farming lobby who pay the vets bills. The vets, who are supposedly trained scientists, should be ashamed of themseves.

Every veterinarian dissects a rabbit in his or her first year at university in an undergraduate zoology course. When I took such a course and badger culling was in the news — and farmers were gassing badgers on the sly as result — a letter was published in a national newspaper from a member of the zoology faculty staff which said

The department has been purchasing wild caught rabbits for use (dissection) in student laboratories by undergraduate medical, veterinary and zoology students for over 30 years. Throughout that time a large number of these were infected with tuberculosis.

This is almost certainly the case throughout the continent of Europe where rabbits and badgers co-exist. There has been no assault on TB in wild animals as there has been on rabies.

Curiously then, we hear nothing about wiping out rabbits or, laughably, “stopping them roaming about the fields” — because if myxomatosis couldn’t do the job then it probably can’t be done. But the poor old badger looks vulnerable so… Let’s string ‘im up! Someone has to pay… because the farmers want more. Always MORE.

Now, common sense has finally prevailed. The government has just abandoned plans to cull badgers — for the simple reason that it wouldn’t work. Undoubtedly some farmers who have been waiting for a license to kill badgers will go and do the job as quietly as they can.

I will not have to boycott British beef. We are safe from cute little “No badgers were harmed in the production of this beef” stickers, on top of all other things we need to pay attention to.

Tags: Badgers