The arrangements proposed in the consultation would impose duties, obligations and responsibilities on the keepers of these animals. This would be done by largely replicating the arrangements already in place for bovine animals through secondary legislation. The proposed policy will be delivered by means of the draft Order annexed to the consultation entitled the Tuberculosis (No 2) (Wales) Order 2010.The measures provided for by the Order are consistent with the objective of the Wales TB Eradication Programme which aims to address all sources of infection, including in non-bovine animals.
Meanwhile, Defra has resurrected the 'other species' TB stats which appeared to have stuck in departmental groove last November. But as we have pointed out before, these are numbers of culture positive animals only, and are not representative of total deaths which are reported to and postmortemed by, VI centres. And running in just about a parallel time frame with the figure of 28 alpacas in the stats, other
information from Defra indicates a total of at least 35 herds under TB restriction, with 3 more notified at the end of last week.
So of the 28 alpacas identified on the stats, each of the almost 40 holdings presented an arm and a leg, presumably ?
For comparison, this time last year (July 2009), 11 camelid herds were under TB restriction. And to illustrate the yawning gap between Defra's stats and reality, members of the alpaca TB Support group have reported 155 deaths up until the end of July 2010. At least 19 herds under restriction are not members of this group, thus their casualties (apart from animals culture sampled) are not publicly logged anywhere at all.
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