In July, she asked the B.A.S. if they would kindly email her short survey to all their members, or put a contact within the magazine which is circulated to members.
She offered B.A S. the results of the survey.
After some considerable delay, the B.A.S. declined her offer, politely offering their “regret” that they were “not able to circulate this for you."
The full letter, with the views of some alpaca owners, and BAS members can be viewed here.
Their reply could be summarised as follows:
“No. We do not want to know about bTB in alpacas. We are trying to run a business here.”
Undaunted, this young lady gathered names and addresses of alpaca breeders from the BAS website which were local to her own address, and at her own expense mailed them, together with a stamped addressed envelope for their replies – should they wish to participate. As her survey would be more robust if it reached BAS members over a wider area, we are happy to post it for her and hope alpaca owners will circulate it further.
One would think the B.A.S. would welcome an independent study into the increasing problems of bTB within alpacas, carried out at no cost to the B.A.S and with its results then able to inform the Board of its member’s attitude to this disease. Obviously we were quite wrong.
To download a copy of the survey form, please access this link. [click reload option, if an error box appears, or delete the error box on the X in the right hand corner]
We offer Ysella Woods every good wish with her project.
Possibly her next one should be on ostriches.
4 comments:
Typical B.A.S. I would have done the survey - not a burden. Why didn't they send it out.
The BAS board represent the Board NOT the BAS members who pay £70 - £120 a year to be a member.
They have £250,000 in the kitty.
why not help and why not represent us the true members.
My friend has lost half herd to Tb and no help from BAS.
IF B.A.S. continue to behave like this then god help us all.
TB is killing our industry and yet the society we pay money to is doing bugger all.
How do our fellow europeans feel - who we export to. Are you not worried. You should be.
How do our fellow livestock industry feel.
Yes cull the badgers but then alpacas have freedom to spread the disease with no legislation.
What are the other industries doing to support those of us who want alpacas classed as livestock.
The BAS are not helping its members - its protecting their own-so we need you to help.
We need you to lobby for a change in legislation BAS won't do it.
We are sure that Ysella wood will value your responses to her survey, and thank you for taking the time to comment.
It does seem that the BAS board have misread the reaction of their members (and customers) re bTB.
On this site, we view the eradication of tuberculosis as important. Not which vector is in the frame at any one time. The current spill over into many other species, including alpacas is something which was inevitable, given the amount of bacteria cooking within an ever expanding badger population.
But to get Defra, the various factions within the cattle industry, wildlife groups and now your own representatives to act in unison against the spread of this dreadful disease, is like pushing water up hill.
We'll help where we can.
bTB affects us all and with TB in alpacas so highly infectious, its onward spread to any other mammal, including feeding back into wildlife, is inevitable.
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