Living Like You Mean It : #StopTheCull - Culling Badgers Will Not Stop Bovine TB

Badger - A Government Patsy?

by Mark Plummer BSc / PGCE

Once again the powers that be in this country are demonstrating both their contempt for the natural world and for objective science. I am of course referring to the 2018 badger cull. Apparently, in 2016, 10,000 of the animals were killed and in 2017 the number rose to 19,000+. This year (2018) if the current government gets its way the number can only rise. The stated official reason for the cull is to prevent or control the spread of Bovine TB in intensively reared cattle.

For the record, this writer has no issue with the principle of killing an animal for food, certainly if there is no alternative. Our household is also doing its best in the vegetarian, non-processed, GM free, organic, permaculture and locally sourced food department. I mean to say we all know what goes on in modern agriculture and animal husbandry and I think you have to have a total lack of empathy or understanding to think all of that is OK. From the pure flat out cruelty to long-term impacts such as climate change or the future of agriculture, intensive agriculture is wrong on all levels. That being said I’m no saint or purist and will on occasion have a burger from the van when it’s late at night at a festival and I’m no stranger to the barb-q either! But on a day-to-day basis meat and fish are gone and we are working on the dairy products!

Anyway, here in the UK we have an eminently capable, intelligent and committed environmentalist called Caroline Lucas, (I’m not in the green party either) her voting record is presented here. As of early 2018, the UK environmental secretary is a thoroughly loathsome and skin-crawlingly obnoxious parasite, called Michael Gove. His voting record is presented here. By any sensible benchmark if things were run properly, that is by putting people, planet and community first we would have someone like Caroline Lucas in Michael Gove’s position.

Sadly, we do not. The point is that Caroline Lucas has an understanding of the subject matter in hand, Michael Gove does not and more importantly, he doesn’t care. The man had no experience, qualifications or pedigree as legal and education secretary (his two previous posts) and in broad objective strokes was despised by both professions. The same is true, but with much more intensity, for those of us that call ourselves “environmentalists”.

The notion of Michael Gove being the Environment secretary is as dysfunctional as Boris Johnson being the UK current foreign secretary. The presence of Michael Gove is the basic reason as to why the badger cull is not only continuing but looks set to be expanded. The UK labour party secretary as of May 2018 is a woman called Sue Hayman and her voting record is shown here.

Even with Jeremy Corbyn at its head, the Labour party is no champion for the environment either, not while it refuses to confront nuclear issues, fracking and the support thereof in its own ranks and in the trade union movement. Plus, in the very near future, the Labour party could well endorse GMO’s on a “case by case basis” or “if the people of the UK want them”. So I hold no real hope that a future labour government (assuming it happens) will do very much about issues such as the badger cull.

Any species of animal, juxtaposed to the word cull is going to invite controversy and the Badger cull is no different. Like fox hunting, hare coursing, the raven cull or the rapture cull most people and their children simply object on the cruelty stakes and I have no objection to that frame of opposition either. I would add that if your serious on these matters then you should probably start thinking about and acting on the wider issues connected to these kinds of issues. Namely, where our food comes from, how it is processed and what is done to it as a matter of course.

From the industries perspective, bovine TB results in tens of thousands of animals being slaughtered every year, a carnage which costs “meat and dairy” about £100m every year. Badgers with absolutely no credible evidence are the fall guys as they are seen as the vector (carrying) organism for bovine TB. The truth is, they are not and as such, there is absolutely no justification on any grounds whatsoever for the badger cull any more than there is justification for any cull of any animal anywhere. And yes that goes for the grey squirrel too.

There is apparently an effective vaccine for the form of TB that badgers carry, yet a shortage of funds (read cuts) has ceased the nationwide vaccination programme. I will be willing to bet everything that culling badgers are a cheaper option than implementing a nationwide vaccination programme. I also wager it’s cheaper than compelling the meat and dairy industry to improve its practices. I fail to see the intensive animal husbandry which characterises industrial-scale farming is NOT (amongst other issues) a breeding ground for disease.

Bottom line, the cull not work, is a fop to the landowners, the NFU and the meat and dairy industry and it won’t stop the spread of Bovine TB. It flies straight in the face of objective and peer-reviewed science (nothing new there). It will cost the UK taxpayer millions of pounds. It will do nothing to compel the meat and dairy industry to change the way it operates. As things stand in a post-Brexit Britain the exact opposite is more likely. It will satisfy the bloodlust, sadism and cruelty of those employed to carry out the shooting. Finally and most important, it will continue to have a hugely detrimental impact on the ecology and future food security of this country.

Mark Plummer BSc / PGCE

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