TB and Badgers (1 Viewer)

Good News for Badgers from the BBC website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7952282.stm


Mark

This is at best a delay. I am personally not keen on the idea of giving farmers traps and permission to use them - I expect some will simply trap and kill. Not to mention the necessity, difficulty and cost of farmers holding stocks of syringes, pharmacy refrigerators, vaccines and so on, and having to learn vaccination technique to presumably veterinary medical standards.

In addition it seems to me that the difficulty of trapping and vaccinating Badgers could be obviated by vaccinating cattle, which are large, easy to find, and kept confined.

More issue-dodging crap, frankly. (Sorry Mark - not your fault!)

John

Not taken personally just bring it to the attention of people.

I agree farmers and badgers are a bad mix - for the badgers that is

Mark

Isn't it a shame that 'they' cannot agree to vaccinate cattle - all very traceable, eartagged twice, know they have been vaccinated rather than stressing badgers??
And that is a farmer speaking who has lost 6 cattle at the last TB test to TB

socksitis said:

Isn't it a shame that 'they' cannot agree to vaccinate cattle - all very traceable, eartagged twice, know they have been vaccinated rather than stressing badgers??
And that is a farmer speaking who has lost 6 cattle at the last TB test to TB

Click to expand...

The problem as I understand it is that no current test can differentiate between infected cattle and vaccinated cattle, so you can't tell if a vaccinated animal has acquired TB, which is possible as the vaccine is not 100% effective. From what I've read a test which could differentiate is a very long way off.

Vaccinating badgers really doesn't seem in the least practical though.

Graham