Save our badgers

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dianefairhall

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Isle of Lewis, Western Isles
I don't know whether anyone is interested in signing this petition? We don't have badgers in the islands but I think that's irrelevant. They are British wildlife and I think they should be protected.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/310307
 
Signed - its a lesson in managing ourselves in nature rather than managing nature to fit ourselves. Its smarter and tougher to do it better! Ive seen a good few more badgers on the road in the last couple of years which, paradoxically, I take to be a good sign.
 
I wish I could just stop seeing any news. The whole world seems to be collapsing around us. Here’s the latest depressing, infuriating government U-turn.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/07/badger-cull-extended-england-60000-animals-in-line-of-fire
 
Marigold said:
I wish I could just stop seeing any news. The whole world seems to be collapsing around us. Here’s the latest depressing, infuriating government U-turn.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/07/badger-cull-extended-england-60000-animals-in-line-of-fire
Click to expand...
What is the point in having protected species when their protected status is simply ignored? It's not as though 'culling' works unless you exterminate badgers and that probably wouldn't make much impression. Meanwhile farmers continue to spray slurry, that well-known bio-hazard, all over the fields their stock graze.
 
I've had it with politics (never had much time for it.) Just lately though its a continuous calculation of which core voting group needs a sweetener. Basically, it stinks. But they are playing a game they cant lose - if it all comes out roses credit will be claimed - If it crashes there is always a lot of money to be made by the few in chaos! ... Sorry, that's bleak. Somehow we have to disconnect/evolve from 40,000 years of gonad rule because all that cares about is a profitable return in 30 years - in the human time frame that is - unfortunately trees, native mammals, birds all fall well outside of the time frame of human success. I really dont know what to do about it (there is a hedonistic statement if there ever was one!) Things are moving so fast (really fast!) - who knows what the next generations might do and whether it will be timely enough for whatever. ,,, But we are a natural evolution of Gaia's old school - in that there has to be some hope that there is a plan. If it's Her plan then it may be extreme!
 
I agree rick. In the long term, beyond many lifetimes, all will be well. There have been five previous extinction events and look at where we are now. Of course it makes me weep observing the environmental destruction that is going on and how even with my life remaining how much of this I will see.
I’ve come to the conclusion that no amount of campaigning can overcome shortermism. All that remains is to think about our own lifestyles and what we can do to reduce our harmful impact. And then to think about what we can do to enrich our world. Most of us do not have vast resources but we can all make small contributions. A tree here, a nectar rich shrub there, a journey on public transport or a reusable bottle. Small contributions but if 7 billion people do it then the effect would be world changing.
Perhaps it’s an effect of the ageing process but my consciousness has changed over a lifetime to looking at self far more critically, not with condemnation but with the determination to bring about change.
 
How many people would it take to kill 60,000 badgers?
10 people = 6,000 each?
100 people = 600 each?
1,000 people = 60 each?

And how would they sleep at night?
Looking back in their lives, in old age, what would they consider their greatest achievement?
‘I helped to brutally exterminate a protected species, although everyone knew the job would be ineffective at eliminating TB in the cattle which had passed it on to the badgers in the first place.’

Another example of the government failing to ‘Follow the science’.
 
Put me in charge of all 60,000 of them. Then all of the badgers can sleep securely at night. Why not just vaccinate the cattle??? Hen-Gen, can you tell us why they don't???
 
Icemaiden said:
Put me in charge of all 60,000 of them. Then all of the badgers can sleep securely at night. Why not just vaccinate the cattle??? Hen-Gen, can you tell us why they don't???
Click to expand...
So far as I read at the time it was to do with the export market of breeding stock. It is, apparently, a fact that one can’t tell vaccinated stock from those that actually carry the disease, both having antibodies. However the world has moved on and the export of semen is now widespread and the major way by which animals with superior genetics make their international imprint.
I don’t know the price of vaccination per head but it must be a negligible amount compared to over all production costs.

Best estimates of the badger population of the U.K. lie between 250,000 and 450,000. Therefore the slaughter of 60,000 though indefensible will not seriously impact on the species survival given their high reproductive rate.
Compare this to, for example, Manx Shearwaters. The U.K. population is roughly the same as badgers but these lay one egg per year and that’s it. So the loss of 60,000 of these would take years to recover given the predation rate of eggs and chicks.
 
Hen-Gen said:
Icemaiden said:
Put me in charge of all 60,000 of them. Then all of the badgers can sleep securely at night. Why not just vaccinate the cattle??? Hen-Gen, can you tell us why they don't???
Click to expand...
So far as I read at the time it was to do with the export market of breeding stock. It is, apparently, a fact that one can’t tell vaccinated stock from those that actually carry the disease, both having antibodies.
Click to expand...

Do you know, my husband ran in to this problem back in the early 1970s in the US, not with livestock, but with his family! They had been living in Central America for years, and had been vaccinated against TB there, and were returning to the US to live. The children all had to be tested before being allowed to school, and they all showed positive results for TB antibodies. Took quite a lot of paperwork from what he told me, before they were allowed to school!
 
Another horror turned up in my inbox today - the way broiler chickens are treated in the USA. If the UK Govt get their US trade deal, this is what we could be getting:

https://actnow.thehumaneleague.org/live-shackle-slaughter/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1042404&utm_source=1042544&emci=6e5e13ab-e8f2-ea11-99c3-00155d039e74&emdi=bec4ac8a-f6f8-ea11-99c3-00155d039e74&ceid=5429872
 
Haven't looked at the clip but I know that American animal welfare is really bad. That's why American chicken is chlorinated ...
 
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