Memorandum submitted by the Tenant Farmers
Association (BTB 23)
BOVINE TB: BADGER CULLING
INTRODUCTION
1. The Tenant Farmers Association welcomes
the opportunity of providing written evidence to the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs Committee as part of its enquiry into badger
culling as part of a bovine TB control strategy. The TFA has in
the past provided evidence to the Select Committee on this subject
and our evidence here will be consistent with the messages we
have been providing to the Committee and to DEFRA over a long
number of years. This issue is of immense importance to the livestock
industry. We should not underestimate the level of stress, anxiety
and cost that have been faced by farm businesses in recent years
who are forced to watch their cattle be slaughtered due to TB
whilst being seemingly powerless to do anything about it.
2. The Committee will be aware that the
TFA represents the interests of those who do not own their farms
and therefore the capital base of their businesses rests in their
live and dead stock. Bovine TB is therefore an extremely significant
issue for the tenanted sector given the contribution that cattle
values make to the net worth of individual tenant farmers.
THE PRINCIPLE
OF BADGER
CULLING
3. The Tenant Farmers Association believes
it to be essential that badgers infected with TB should be culled.
Farmers struggle to do their best to keep disease away from their
herds but are frankly fighting a losing battle given the extent
to which disease is freely moving amongst badgers and other species
of wildlife. No-one wishes to interfere unduly with an indigenous
species of wildlife, however, badgers are rapacious carnivores
with no known natural predator. Their numbers have increased significantly
over the past 10 years and the incidence of TB in badgers has
also increased significantly. The TFA believes that a cull of
infected badgers is long over due. The TFA has for a long time
questioned the validity of bio-security measures alone in controlling
TB. Badgers are unfortunately extremely effective in climbing
into feed and water troughs and getting into feed stores. There
is also little that can be done to stop cattle coming into contact
with badgers in fields or the excretions that badgers leave behind.
The Tenant Farmers Association wishes to see a healthy cattle
population alongside a healthy badger population.
OPTIONS FOR
A BADGER
CULLING POLICY
4. It would seem to make sense to license
individual farmers to control badgers on their holdings and on
neighbouring units. Of course, any licensing procedure must involve
the provision of guidance to licence holders as to how culling
should be conducted. The TFA believes that such an approach would
be the most cost effective method of ensuring that infected badgers
were dispatched and with proper guidance it should be possible
to ensure that such activities are carried out humanely.
5. The TFA's view is that all infected badgers
should be culled but that process should start with infected badgers
within six-miles of farms which have had a TB breakdown within
the last 12-months. In order to identify infected badgers, the
TFA believes that more work should be done on polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) technology as this is very close to providing a
reliable live test for disease incidence in wildlife. However,
the TFA recognises that this will take some time to develop and
in our view a badger control policy cannot wait until the full
development of PCR technology. Inevitably the TFA accepts that
some healthy badgers will be taken alongside those which are infected.
This is not our intention but it appears to be an unavoidable
consequence of the need to take action now.
6. Licence holders will need to demonstrate
that they have sufficient equipment, skill and resources to carry
out the necessary culling and that they have a good relationship
with neighbouring farmers in their area to enable co-ordination
to be as smooth as possible.
METHODS OF
CULLING
7. The TFA believes that the only humane
method for culling infected badgers should be gassing with carbon
monoxide. The TFA does not support trapping or snaring. The TFA
would be very concerned about other species of wildlife being
caught in snares or traps and also concerned about the animal
welfare implications of snaring in general.
8. Given this position, it will be essential
for any guidance to licence holders to cover the appropriate use
of carbon monoxide to ensure effective and humane control of infected
badgers in setts.
DEFRA'S CONSULTATION
9. The TFA is appalled that DEFRA has consulted
on options which the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on bovine
TB has long since discounted. The ISG felt so strongly about the
misleading nature of the consultation document issued by DEFRA
that it wrote out to all recipients of the consultation document
to clear up the confusion. This leads the TFA to conclude that
DEFRA is not taking this issue sufficiently seriously. The TFA
is gravely concerned that the consultation is being used as yet
another smokescreen for inaction.
10. When asked at the most recent open meeting
of the ISG if it would be possible to control bovine TB by cattle
controls alone and without any control in wildlife, Professor
Bourne, the Chairman of the ISG gave a one word answer—"No".
The TFA now wants DEFRA to act on this scientific view and delay
no further in introducing a cull of infected badgers.
11. It is clear from the work of the ISG
that to be effective, any culling of badgers would have to be
carried out over wide areas (at least 300 km square). This is
the clear scientific view and it should now be implemented by
DEFRA starting with those areas within six miles of herds that
have had TB reactors in the last 12 months. The Government must
also put in place the necessary legal framework to gain consent
for access to land for this culling where it is not provided voluntarily.
12. The TFA cannot understand what extra
research is needed on the issue of gassing. It is already a tried
and tested means of controlling badgers and again the TFA believes
that this is yet just another device for delay.
CONCLUSION
13. Bovine TB is costly to both industry
and Government. We believe that the Government has allowed bovine
TB to rage out of control for a number of years. We are deeply
disappointed that we have yet another consultation process rather
than firm action on control of bovine TB within wildlife. However,
if this leads to swift action along the lines outlined above,
then the TFA is prepared to wait the few extra weeks that will
be required for the consultation exercise to take place. However,
if this becomes yet another smoke-screen for inaction, as we believe
it is, then the consequences would be extremely damaging indeed.
February 2006
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