29th November 2011 The Badger Trust warmly welcomes the Welsh Government’s decision to implement nationally a voluntary scheme for cattle passports to record when animals were last TB tested for bovine tuberculosis [1]. North Wales farmers have already been attaching special stickers to passports in a one-year pilot programme. Peredur […]
Tuesday November 15 2011 The NFU and the Badger Trust have agreed to work together on an initial project to vaccinate badgers on two farms owned by members of the NFU. NFU chief farm policy adviser John Royle and Badger Trust Director Simon Boulter have agreed a joint project in […]
4th November 2011 Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman told a Commons Select Committee (1) that the “difficult Government decision . . . of how to eradicate bovine TB was taken through a very detailed process engaging all the stakeholders as much as possible in making that decision in order to minimise the potential for […]
4th November 2011 Specimen charges arising from 2,500 cattle identification offences over four years cost a South Wales cattle dealer £12,170 at Newport. Trading standards report that offences related to moves on and off holdings under the dealer’s control in Neath, Port Talbot and Monmouthshire involving cattle moved through the local […]
28th October 2011 Farming Minister James Paice produced a string of dangerous half-truths in the Commons on October 18th. in replying to a debate on the Coalition Government’s proposals to kill badgers in an effort to control bovine tuberculosis. He implied that the larger areas proposed for the killing of badgers […]
27th October 2011 Thirty-seven per cent fewer cattle with bovine TB have had to be slaughtered in the first seven months of this year compared with the first seven months of 2009 in the county where the killing of badgers has been proposed. This heartening reduction is revealed in Defra […]
This article comes from a farmer who owns a 48ha pasture farm in Glos. He comes from a local farming family and has kept his own cattle since the 1980’s in a TB ‘hot-spot’. The business has included a commercial beef and calf rearing unit but the herd has never […]
Yesterday Caroline Spelman announced that she was ‘minded to allow a cull’ of badgers in two hotspot areas for bovine tb, most likely Devon and Gloucestershire. This will follow more consultation on the methods to be used (shooting of free running badgers), and whether or not they are considered to […]
15th July 2011. The Coalition Government must now abandon its proposal to kill badgers following this week’s powerful condemnation by the scientists most closely concerned with research into culling [1]. They were Lord Krebs, who designed the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, Prof John Bourne, chairman and members of the Independent […]
13th July 2011 REACTIVE badger culling doubles the risk of bTB breakdown on herds within one kilometre of the culled area. That’s the stark warning from the latest scientific research by Imperial College. Using rigorous analytical techniques the research [1], released today (July 13) underlines once again the dangers inherent in attempts […]