Memorandum submitted by the Society for
the Eradication of Tuberculosis Transmission (SETT)
BOVINE TB
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Since the demise of the Clean Ring badger culling
strategy, the introduction of the Interim and subsequent "strategies"
and the passing of the Badger Protection Act in 1992—bovine
TB in cattle has increased exponentially. SETT respectfully reminds
EFRA Committee members of its proposal made to Defra in April
2003 which has now formally been taken up by Ian Pearson, MP,
Northern Island Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development.
SETT members seek an early movement towards a holistic, practical,
sustainable and cost-effective political solution involving the
licensed management of wildlife "locally"; an arrangement
which should incidentally also embrace the equally challenging
issue of "hunting with hounds". A document is also enclosed
illustrating numbers of cattle slaughtered within different badger
culling strategies during the period 1978-2003 (Annex A).
2. INTRODUCTION
2.1 It is now just over a year since EFRA
Committee published its "Badgers & Bovine TB" Seventh
Report of Session 2002-03 (April 2003).
2.2 Since then government ministers have
ceased the proactive element of the Krebs Trials, answered many
hundreds of questions concerning bTB and continually refer to
a (one-sided) bTB "control strategy". Throughout the
year we have witnessed politicians playing scientists and scientists
playing politicians. The bTB politician/scientist interface has
gone the way of all such relationships—BSE and FMD included—and
as such only serves to confuse both the issue as well as other
interested parties. Devolution has also presented considerable
differences of strategy interpretation—although primarily
due to cost implications.
2.3 The Krebs trial—somewhat naively
conceived for "laboratory" conditions and both translated
and predictably implemented appallingly—has been a cock-up
from start to finish. Ministers do not have, sadly, a bTB "control
strategy" to speak of—only an exercise which will prove
little (scientifically) and serves only to delay the inevitable—ie
the substantial and thorough culling of badgers in appropriate
areas: for if the Trials have proven anything at all—it
is surely that it is only worth culling badgers on a 100% community
group basis. Nothing less!
2.4 The New Labour government of 1997 ceased
badger culling immediately on gaining office. In 1997 annual cattle
slaughtered due to bTB exceeded some 6,000; today—seven
years later—it is some 30,000. A graph illustrating the
exponential increase of cattle slaughtered from 1978-2003 with
the then current badger culling strategy indicated is attached
separately.
3. DISCUSSION
3.1 It has been said by many (SETT in particular)
that this New Labour administration understands little and cares
even less about folk that live and work in the British countryside.
Trying to live up to promises made before May 1997 about land
management, farming animals and country pursuits in the UK have—for
a now-perceived "centre of centre" political party—proven
difficult to implement and live with.
3.2 The government's dilemma is this—does
it ban hunting with hounds that kill the vermin fox but which
process also demonstrably illustrates a harmonious balance with
nature? The rural fox population has never been healthier. Does
it allow a bTB infected but protected species (badger) to inflict
harm to both cattle health and farmers' livelihoods? Thus—conversely—the
badger population has never been so relatively unhealthy. By definition
today's protected badger qualifies as "vermin" to a
greater extent than does the "healthy" fox!
3.3 The key to controlling mammalian wildlife
today is not so much scientific as political. If this government
(and for that matter previous ones also) had bitten on the bullet
and culled tuberculous badgers as and when they manifested their
infectivity—today's cattle farmer would be living harmoniously
with a healthy sustainable still-protected nationwide badger population.
After all—scientists have proven that this is the outcome
of such practices. Having ignored the solution for so long politicians
and so-called "conservationists" now fear WMD—wildlife
mass destruction—due entirely to wholesale political ignorance
and cowardice! Field working MAFF (as was) and Defra staff know
the truth but policy somehow threatens the truth. It is as though
the real life bTB experiences jointly shared by farmer, veterinary
surgeon and professional MAFF/Defra staff over fifty years have
been air-brushed out by New Labour policy and those experiences
changed into anecdote and mythology. True bTB science started
in 1997! Anything before that does not exist!
4. SOLUTION
4.1 In its previous submission to EFRA Committee—included
in the April 2003 report (Appendix 15)—SETT proposed that
government got together "local wildlife management committees
populated with stakeholders".
4.2 SETT was pleased to see the announcement
made recently (5 May 2004) that Ian Pearson, MP, Northern Island
Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, announced the
establishment of such a Stakeholder Group to consider the potential
need for a badger management strategy to help reduce Bovine TB
levels in Northern Ireland. He said "I am pleased to say
that a range of environmental, veterinary and farmer interests
have agreed to nominate representatives to this Stakeholder Badger
Group".
4.3 SETT further proposes that only a local
licensed solution that is also self funding will solve the problem.
Ideally the solution should also embrace a licensed hunting regime
with the current farmer/huntsman relationship extended to include
the management of all wildlife (particularly the tuberculous deer
in the South West) within a "stakeholder group" regime.
SETT feels sure that this additional responsibility for huntsmen
will be received as a natural extension to their current duties
including the disposal of fallen stock. Pilot schemes should be
introduced immediately following the production of a blueprint
methodology for agreement at national level of all those organisations
with an interest. Today's Defra Ministers may be pleasantly surprised
to find that implementing this proposal will be considerably easier
than continuing to justify the obviously tainted now "out
of time" policy decision of 1997. And the Balance Sheet improves
immeasurably!
"Locally appointed people—living
and working locally in rural communities—licensed to responsibly
manage its area's wildlife population within a local stakeholder
group framework and answerable to a higher enabling authority".
Society for the Eradication of Tuberculosis Transmission
(SETT)
May 2004
Annex A
BADGER CULLING STRATEGIES: 1978-2003
In 1980 Lord Zuckerman wrote: "The basic
and incontrovertible fact is that TB in badgers is now (1980)
a significant second reservoir of the disease in parts of the
South West, dangerous for badgers and cattle alike. Given the
policy of the Government to suppress bovine TB, the disease cannot
be allowed to spread in the badger population. I cannot therefore
see any reason for continuing the moratorium on the campaign to
eliminate tuberculous badgers."
Society for the Eradication of Tuberculosis Transmission
(SETT)
May 2004
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