More on camelids

We wrote last year of the problems facing the owners of llamas and alpacas, when they succumb to spillover TB. And this has been reinforced by the owner of a small Cornish herd, who has lost 4 alpacas to TB. Dianne Summers entered the following comment below our September 2008 posting.

Since Sept 2008 I have lost 4 alpacas to TB. Last Friday I put down two of my boys who were coughing and despite having negative skin tests 6 weeks earlier, they were both confirmed with Tb.[at post mortem] I did get the research lab to conduct the 'stat - pak rapid test' on the two animals which were put down and the result was a strong positive.
The skin test is useless [on alpacas].
I am in touch with 7 other Tb affected alpaca owners and gathering data - time lines symptoms etc. Many had it brought into their farms through matings etc.

The problem with tuberculosis and anything other than 'bovines', is that government statute does not cover right of entry, testing or control of the disease in any form whatsoever, without the consent of the owner. Miss. Summers has behaved extremely responsibly in offering her alpacas for testing and volunteering them for slaughter. This is not mandatory, even when traces are done on purchased camelids, who show TB spoligotypes inconsistent with the herd owning them at the time of slaughter. She has also pioneered testing of a new and different blood test, the 'stat-pak rapid test' (about which, we must find more) - to confirm ante mortem TB, when the skin test, which is ineffective on camelids, fails.

Many local AHOs are struggling to control this disease in their sentinel, tested cattle, without having the proverbial door slammed in their face by irresponsible camelid owners, who would rather breed, sell and show their animals, (wouldn't we all?) than face up to the unpalatable fact that they have traded, diseased stock. And in doing so, have spread tuberculosis to other herds in other parts of the country. AHOs are aware of the dangers to human health and to other camelids as a result of the habit which these animals have, of spitting. They also show little or no signs of the disease - but spread it readily through breath saliva and spit. Dianne points out:

This is why the popular and highly attended show circuit and on- farm matings are a potential swamp of disease. Also we [camelid owners] do not have to keep any animal movement records. A colleague took one of his females to an alpaca breeder for mating. She came back, but died 188 days later. The pm showed tuberculosis and samples showed that the spoligotype strain type was NOT his farm but the same as the breeders. This breeder refused to test and threatened him with a law suit. My colleague has now lost 9 of his 13 females to TB.

So, we have a burgeoning industry in selling these delightful animals far and wide, offering on-farm matings, with no records of either health status or movements, no responsibility to trace contacts or source if tuberculosis is found, and the owners' 'right' to refuse entry if tracings are carried out? Marvellous. Absolutely bloody marvellous. And Defra? Our Ministry of (some) Animal's Health?

Unfortunately those tending Defra's London window box have yet to catch up with the potential problems infected camelids could pose, and together with the Alpaca Society, are throwing this one into the long grass - along with any semblance of infected reservoir control.

It is left to responsible farmers like Dianne Summers to try and raise awareness of the possibility of TB within the camelid population, so that other owners and breeders are not faced with the problems which she has had. She ends her comment:

This is a serious issue and we need to be open and communicate with each other. I am also trying to set up a support network for all those affected. Please get in touch and any information will be confidential. Dianne Summers 01209 822422 summersdianne@yahoo.com

We are grateful for the opportunity to widen the debate for her.

To cull, or how to cull?

The Guardian's George Monbiot has entered the 'to cull, or not to cull' fray, with a highly emotional piece on the proposed badger cull in Pembrokeshire. Describing it as 'brutal, futile and incomprehensible', his diatribe begins:

It would be stupid to deny that badgers are both a reservoir and a vector of bovine TB. They are not the only ones of course: cattle are also responsible for spreading the disease among themselves. But you don't have to deny it to believe that the eradication programme being planned in Wales is mad.

So, having accepted that badgers are both a reservoir and a vector of m.bovis, a selective cull over a smallish area of N. Pembroke is mad? Mmmm.

Readers may remember the heartrending story of the whole herd slaughter of some 800 organic dairy cattle belonging to Trioni farms in that area, earlier this year. Mad? Yup, you could say that.
So what is the answer? Leave this disease to fester in the environment, spilling over into more and more species? Perhaps to cull more cattle? Certainly some of Mr. Monbiot's supporters reckon it would be better to cull the Welsh farmers, which is as insulting as it is unhelpful. But they miss the point. We have reported so many times the utter futility of testing and culling sentinel cattle, while leaving the cause of their immune response to continue reinfecting. That is what is mad. Mad, and expensive and recklessly dangerous.

But there is another way. A total clearance of badgers works (Thornbury), but after more than a decade of prevarication, following the previous decade of sanitisation of policy, the problem is so widespread that any solution has to be more 'management' than 'wipe out'. And that is achievable. So rather than see George Monbiot's teddies flying high, why not look more closely at a workable solution? For sure several 'scientists' may well have to look elsewhere for gainful employment, but with a workable eradication plan, we - as in GB plc - may just avoid walking into another trade ban.

Yesterday's Western Morning News carried an article by freelance journalist Anthony Gibson, describing just such an approach. Mr. Gibson describes not a blanket 'wipe out' as envisaged by the emotional Mr. Monbiot, but a "highly targeted selective cull, on a sett-by-sett basis."

It would obviously rely on being able to identify which badger social groups were infected, and which not. But that can be done either by using the so-called PCR test, or through visual assessments, carried out by people who understand badgers and can tell from looking at them and how they behave, whether or not they are diseased. There is at least one individual in this region who claims to be able to do this, and I have no doubt that there may be others.

"So why ," asks Mr. Gibson, "is neither the technology nor the human expertise being employed as the basis for a culling strategy which everything we know about bovine TB and badgers suggests would be (a) effective, (b) acceptable and (c) affordable?" He answers this rehetorical question:

The explanation, as I know only too well from my days in the NFU, is that any culling policy in England must be able to survive the inevitable legal challenge from the Badger Trust. And the received wisdom is that a culling policy that departs from the recommendations of the ISG might well get the thumbs down from the courts.

No matter that the trials which the ISG assessed were badly carried out and seriously disrupted by activists and foot and mouth disease, or that the ISG's conclusions have been heavily criticised as both illogical and premature by other scientists, including the Government's then Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King. There is a clear danger the ISG report would be viewed by a court as gospel, and that a government attempting to do something not sanctioned by it would lose. It was that analysis, more so even than his obvious lack of political courage, that led Hilary Benn into making the decision he did last year..

And so we have the quite bizarre situation, where as Mr. Gibson points out, "the only badger culling policy on the table is a culling policy we know would be worse than useless." Thus far, both opposition parties appear to have taken on board the necessity of a targeted badger cull, limited to endemically infected areas, and possibly based on the PCR identification of grossly infected setts. And the further they distance themselves from a prevarication 'trial' which showed if nothing else, how not to cull badgers, the better; but let that pass. Mr. Gibson continues:

So what can be done to make a positive outcome more likely? The first thing is to forget about the ISG's crazy ideas on wide-area culling and get behind a selective, targeted cull. []. The second is to make the case for selective culling to the public, and I was delighted to hear sponsorship is well on the way to being lined up for a film which will do precisely that, to be made by Chris Chapman in the autumn.

A twin-track strategy of clearing infected setts by culling, and protecting healthy setts by vaccinating, is not only the obvious way forward with bovine TB, it is the only way forward.

It is essential that the industry now unites behind it.

And then at least these youngsters, may have a chance of avoiding the ever open maw of Defra's killing machine.

Playing for time?

A letter published in Veterinary Times this week, supports Dr. Ueli Zellweger's
concerns over Defra's proposal to vaccinate badgers, endemically infected with TB, with a less than efficient BCG TB vaccine.

The letter from Dr. Lewis H. Thomas, MA, VetMB, PhD, FRCPath, MRCVS comments:

The best that can be hoped for is that DEFRA's strategy will do no harm and not make matters worse. We know that BCG may be proactive in naive [uninfected] badgers, but we have no idea what may happen in chronically infected animals. Rather than damp down infection, it is equally probable that it may light up chronic infections to become overt disease, with even more infectious bacilli shed into the environment. The likelihood of vaccination being effective in the face of massive challenge from naturally infected badgers is highly speculative.

The argument from the badger groups has always centred on this spurious difference of infected badgers v, infectious badgers. So anything that provokes a walled up lesion to beak down, is not the brightest idea, if the candidate is still alive and kicking enough to spread its lethal load. Dr. Thomas continues:

One may ask why perturbation - the opt-out excuse for rational action put forward by the Independent Scientific Group in its June 2007 report - is suddenly no longer a problem? Does DEFRA suppose catching, vaccinating and releasing badgers will be any less of a perturbation than that experienced during the randomised badger culling trials (RBCTs)? And does it suppose enough badgers will be caught to attain the 80 per cent or more cover needed to achieve meaningful protection - even assuming the vaccine is effective?

In Dr.Thomas's view, the DEFRA vaccination strategy " has not been fully researched scientifically and is unlikely to bring any practical benefit", and he concludes;

One in forced to the conclusion that, like the nine year RBCTs this latest speculative move is designed simply to buy the Government five more years when it can pretend it is doing something to stem this wretched disease that is out of control in large parts of the country.

Defra confidently expect them to come to call, and get jabbed. Remember that super cartoon showing the queue? We kid you not.

Spillover - terrier

We have received the following report from a Midlands vet, telling the salutary tale of a terrier - doing what terriers do - and paying the ultimate price.

In March a client came in with a working terrier which had obviously been in the wars. It had a bitten muzzle etc. The owner said it had discovered a moribund badger, killed it and eaten part of it.

Our correspondent patched the terrier up, administered appropriate aftercare and warned the owner to be on the lookout for any signs of TB, which was an obvious danger given the state of this close-to-death badger. Last week, the terrier was again referred:

The dog, although still eating, had lost weight, looked worried / distressed and had shallow breathing. The dog was euthanased, and at PM there were multiple lesions in the liver, the intestines and in the pleura of the lungs there were handfuls of 'millet'.

VLA are culturing samples from the dog (for bTB), but in a further twist to this 'environmental encounter', the terrier had been recuperating with a family who have a young child in the household.

At the pace of a sloth on Valium, and still in utter denial about the risk of this increasing 'environmental contamination' to which pets and their owners are being exposed, Defra, as ever, following their master's voice, seemed reluctant to alert the relevant Communicable Health authorities to the disease risk to this family, and in particular, the child, until they received culture results back from VLA.

Our latest cattle samples have taken over six months; however our correspondent was more forceful, commenting:

"I had to persuade Defra that they should contact the Health authorities now and not wait until culture results are back".

Post update

We are grateful to Ueli Zellweger for further explanation on why injecting badgers endemically infected with tuberculosis, with a less than reliable BCG vaccine, is not the brightest idea our lords and (political) masters have ever had. Posting below

Back to the Drawing Board?

As our readers will have guessed by now, we are less than enthusiastic about the concept of vaccinating badgers, endemically infected with tuberculosis with - a vaccine for er, tuberculosis. Leaving aside the small niggles of designing of a badger 'crush' in which to confine them long enough to safely jab, using a vaccine which is less than efficient and then marking the candidates so they don't get needled twice, the very idea of doing this in areas where badgers are riddled with TB seems crackers. But hey, we're just farmers. Wadda we know?

We talked about the concept of badger vaccination well over a year ago, and when Defra announced its planned vaccination programme would only be in hotspot areas, we updated our comments.

Today, we were not alone. Farmers Guardian report that a Swiss-trained vet, now based in South West England, has said Defra’s plan to inject badgers was ‘guaranteed to backfire’, as there were only two ‘golden rules’ regarding vaccination – and this would break both of them.

The first rule was to ‘never, never vaccinate a stressed or weakened animal’, but trapping and manually injecting badgers would do just that, he said.

Stress compromised the immune system and the effectiveness of the vaccine, but more seriously, a weak badger would fall down the social pecking order and be forced out of the sett, increasing perturbation.

A displaced badger trying to join a sett would lead to fighting, with a high risk of TB transmission. A weakened badger with no sett would be more likely to forage in a farmyard, depositing infected excretions (saliva, urine and faeces), putting cattle at risk.

The second rule was to never vaccinate against a disease when you have ‘even the slightest suspicion’ the animal already had it.

But this is Defra we're talking about. And vaccinating endemically infected badgers against a disease which they already have, is a decision made by a career bureaucrat - our minister for (some) Animal Health, Hilary Benn, MP. Is he walking on water? We think so.

This is a very serious situation. We could only hope that this stark, staring mad daft idea did not make a bad situation even worse.

But in the opinion of Mr. Zellweger, as it was with our scientifically minded colleagues, it is likely to do precisely that.

UPDATE
We are grateful to Mr. Zellweger (an experienced veterinary practitioner) for further explanation of why this idea of Hilary Benn (a career politician) that vaccinating badgers already infected with tuberculosis, will add anything other than carnage to an already bad situation.

On the second 'golden rule' of any vaccination programme, that of jabbing a candidate "who you even the slightest suspician may have the diseae already", Ueli Zellweger makes the following points, specifically about tuberculosis:

If such a diseased animal is vaccinated there is a very high risk to booster or trigger the infection, making things much worse. With bTB, a generalized infection could result: for a minor focus - or tubercle as those are called - even in a so far closed form, could break up, producing a wide spread of bacteries via blood - or lymphstream to all other organs, leading to abscesses and pus and shedding of high amounts of infectious material for the whole miserable rest of its [ the badger's] life. TB is almost always a chronic disease with an “extremly slow death” ~ sometimes after years only suffering from low fever every now and then and getting weaker and weaker.

Mr. Zellweger points out that Defra plan to start their vaccination of badgers with injectible BCG in pilot areas in 2010, in six some 40 square miles big test areas where bTB is known to be already most endemic. And in spite of
technology being avaialable, he notes;

It is not planned to test badger setts before vaccination.

And by 2014, when in theory at least, this sop to perceived opinion
bright idea will be rolled out, the numbers of tested, slaughtered cattle sentinels will be approaching 75,000 annually in GB.

Spillover into other mammalian species is an unknown, but it is gathering pace.

Will they? Won't they?

As the Westminster bubble bursts in a frenzy of accusations and counter accusations concerning whether our elected representatives have raided the communal cookie jar, the question surely should be, have they given us value for our money? Actually made a difference? Have they taken part in the democratic process and debate that we assume, often quite wrongly, is the purpose of having a parliament at all?

So much of what passes for UK law, is snuck in behind closed doors, bereft of parliamentary scrutiny or debate and much relating to animal health is delivered from Europe, with our own ministers merely adding gift wrap.

The basis of this site is 500 parliamentary questions tabled by a past Shadow minister Owen Paterson MP during his tenure. His reward was a shift to the parliamentary equivalent of outer Siberia and total under-utilisation of his intelligence and energy. So what of the current shadow Minister?

Today, Nick Herbert gave the following statement which if taken at face value, appears to be 'on behalf of the Conservative party' rather than Mr. Herbert, who may or may not be in a position of honouring it after the election:

We cannot go on slaughtering tens of thousands of cattle while ignoring the reservoir of infection in wildlife.

Sick badgers are responsible for a significant number of herd breakdowns and unless there is a policy to remove them we stand little chance of eradicating this terrible disease.

Mr. Herbert restated his Party’s intention to ‘pursue a targeted cull of infected badgers as part of a broad strategy’ to tackle the problem.

Farmers Guardian has the story and comments:

The Conservatives have given their unequivocal commitment to implementing a badger cull, if they win the next General Election.

We'll see.

New Farmers' TB Blog

Herefordshire beef farmer Julia Evans, is the first contributer to a new farmers' blog organised by Farmers Guardian, as part of their ongoing 'Target TB' initiative.

After an FMD restock from a single closed herd in 2001, Julia writes:

"In the spring of 2002 we had our first routine TB test. There were eight reactors. We had never had a problem with TB on the farm and the herd certainly had no history of it. I was very disappointed and have continued to be so on and off for the last seven years.

The herd has been tested every 60 days for four out of the last seven years. Reactor cattle are killed, heavily pregnant cows, newly calved or heifers destined for show or sale, but I can't get rid of the disease because some of the numerous badgers who share the pastures with the cattle are also infected with TB. Nothing has been or is being done to address this part of the problem.

I should have sold between 30 or 40 pedigree females by now. I've managed to sell three. TB has ruined, and continues to ruin, my business."

More farmers will contribute to this site over the coming weeks, telling it 'like it is' on their farms, dealing with TB, testing and movement restriction problems at grass roots level. Read Julia's introductory posting.

Badgers v. Farmers

Describing the overspill of badgerTB into other species including domestic pets, infection passed between people and their pets, the balance of payments deficit and the piling of ever more cattle into the "maw of the government's bTB killing machine", Charlie Brooks in today's Telegraph comments:

The whole situation is utterly depressing for farmers who want to produce food when they get out of bed in the morning, not fill in compensation forms for destroying their livestock. I came across one passionate farmer recently whose family had been in the business for five generations. He is thinking of giving up, because he can't bear the thought of breeding quality pedigree dairy cows simply to feed them into the maw of the Government's bTB killing machine. The future for him and many others is bleak. Official figures show that 4,443 cattle had to be slaughtered in January this year, a rise of almost a third from the same time in 2008. Who knows where we will be next year

The piece is a good thumbnail of the situation across the board, also describing the fate of the poor old badgers in this unholy mess - a consequence definitely not wanted in public view, by 'in denial' Badger Trust supporters..

Though it appears to panic the public far less than swine flu, bTB is not a disease to be taken lightly. Badgers that succumb to it suffer horrific symptoms, including internal lesions, before dying in an emaciated state.

Farmers who are desperately trying to cope with the situation could be forgiven for hoping that badgers will migrate into urban areas and infect a few more cuddly dogs and cats. Only then will any politician really attack this problem with gusto.

They are (migrating)and are being actively encouraged into urban gardens, childrens' sandpits and play areas. But politicians have their single collective brain cell on other trivia things at the moment. Joining the dots on the spread of infectious disease, is quite beyond most.

"Only a cull will save cattle producers" argues Charlie Brooks. "The badgers must go before the farmers do."

Spillover - update

Today's front page headline in the Western Morning News, reads 'Massive rise in Animal TB cases'. That is 'animal' as in species other than badgers (in which the disease is 'endemic'), and sentinel tested cattle, (which if they react to the test for exposure to the bacteria which causes TB, are shot). The paper's report is referring to other mammalian species. Spillover.

Last year, 119 non-bovine creatures contracted the disease, including 33 goats, 31 wild deer, 18 pet cats, 13 alpacas and 10 pigs. Sheep, llamas, dogs and farmed and park deer also fell victim to the strain, which has been responsible for the death of 200,000 cattle over the past 10 years.

Defra squirm out this four fold increase, saying that as badgerTB is notifiable now, they are looking for it and will find more. But doesn't that put Meat Hygiene Officers firmly in their place? Haven't they always been 'looking for it' at abattoirs? Is it not what they are paid to do with all food animals? With domestic cats and dogs - Defra possibly have a point. And as we are nothing if not fair on this site, we 'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the spillover figures 2007 over 2006. But not the increase 2008 over 2007, to which the WMN report draws attention. Prior to 2006, veterinary surgeons would probably have hesitated to suggest another £100+ on top of hefty fees, to post mortem a casualty. And the single (only?) thing former minister Baby Ben Bradshaw achieved during his tenure astride Defra's fence, was to make badgerTB notifiable in all mammalian species, with postmortems paid for by his department.

The results of this increasing environmental contamination, we have covered over the years, seeing bTB cases expand from reservoir maintenance host and its messenger, into alpacas ,cats, goats and more cats. With many more casualties along the way, including this story from Farmers Guardian on badgerTB in free range pigs.

Will the last cow standing

.. turn out the lights. Further to our posting on the recently published work from York, and the flying teddies response from the Badger Trust, we read in the Western Morning News, Anthony Gibson's take on the paper.

Mr. Gibson is a former SW director of the NFU, and now a freelance agricultural journalist. The article has many good points - until he follows the line of the scientists who did this research which showed that 'boss' cows had more contact with badgers than those further down the pecking order. In order to use this seismic (to scientists, if not to cattle farmers) snip, the scientists, and to a certain degree, Anthony, have both tried to shoehorn this to a practical herd situation.

Their thoughts were along the lines of 'identify, separate and test the boss cows more frequently', and even segregate them in a (hermetically sealed?)building.

And what then?

As we have said, in any group of animals (or people for that matter), there is a leader. And if that leader is removed, then jockeying up the scale will be another one to take its place.. And another.

The boss calls it 'cognitive dissonance'. Which means that even if a policy of shooting the messenger doesn't work, by dispassionately carrying on regardless, sooner or later the problem is solved because all the messengers are dead.

We see a certain parallel here.

Because we need a laugh ...

... we will post the Badger Trust's hissy fit press release relating to the work which we linked to below where it was shown that contact between badgers and cattle was 'much closer' than originally thought (at least by scientists).

Study finds "no evidence" that badgers give TB to cattle, says Badger Trust

The Badger Trust strongly challenges claims by the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) that "TB could be passed from badgers to cattle" through contact between cattle and badgers in the field[1].

Would we expect anything less?

In a paper in an online journal [2], researchers explain how they used data logging equipment to record what they call "contact initiation" between cattle and badgers. On publication, lead researcher Mike Hutchings claimed in a resulting SAC press release that this contact is "a potentially significant area of disease transmission between the species".

It is.

But David Williams, chairman of Badger Trust, dismissed the claims: "The idea that badgers 'initiate contact' with cattle is just ludicrous. These claims are absurd and are not even supported by the researchers' own data. Their data loggers recorded a so-called 'contact' when badgers were around two metres away from cattle.

Nope, it was less than 'around 2m'. The transponders were set at 2m to initiate a contact log. But average contact distance was much less, and as far as I know these gadgets were around the necks of the candidates, not attached to the end of their noses. Thus the distance from the transponder to the 'aerosol opportunity' changes contact distance a lot. Estimate 2 feet for a holstein cow from the transponder around her neck to the end of her nose, and about a foot for a big boar badger ? That's almost a metre less than the average 1.46 recorded. And that's more than enough to splatter particularly if the there is a badger cough or spit aerosol propellant involved.

That's hardly 'contact': the badgers could have been on the other side of a hedge. And the researchers have conspicuously failed to explain how a badger, whose nose is just a few centimetres off the ground, could transmit bovine TB to a cow that is almost two metres tall and two metres away.

Small hedges then. Ours are 3 m wide at least, including protective back fences. And cattle have their heads 2m off the ground? Always? They never graze? Lie down? Drink? Are they stuffed? By Williams, Lawson and their fellow travellers. Yes.

"Around half of all so-called 'contacts' were for barely a second and the researchers even admit that this so-called 'contact' was 'relatively infrequent'. Indeed, over six months less than half the cattle were anywhere near a badger.

There aren't that many badgers in this area of Yorks.. Imagine the difference if the work had been done in the SW where we're falling over the bloody things.. It ain't quantity (except of bacteria) It's quality - as in how infectious are these creatures. If even one 'contact' had been from a super excreter and the cow had sniffed just 70 units of bacteria, then she's stuffed. A reactor.

"Of course, the study found that cattle are constantly close to one another, even though the equipment was turned down to intentionally minimise the number of cow to cow contacts that were recorded. Cow to cow - both within herds and between herds - is the obvious way in which bovine TB is spread and maintained and this study provides ample evidence for that transmission route.

Of course it is. And the earth is flat. This chestnut that cattle contact is a significant transmission opportunity totally contradicts VLA's spoligotype maps. (If a cow has developed lung lesions and is housed, that is the only exception.)

"The only interesting finding of this study, which confirms the well documented territorial behaviour of badgers, is that neighbouring social groups of badgers almost never came anywhere near one another.

Er, read it again. There was a lot of contact between the two groups in September, which is what we see at ground level. A huge amount of activity in autumn and spring.

It's the 'dispersers' that cause much of the trouble. Sick badgers excluded from their own clan, will travel further and encounter other groups. Bite wounding as territorial scrapping takes place is a documented route of disease transmission.
The idea that a badger group remains the same size even when sows have cubs every year and the group expands, and gets older (weaker) and young males fight for supremacy within the heirarchy, is 'Wind in the Willows' stuff.

This scotches the view promulgated by farming unions that bovine TB is spread between badger social groups rather than from herd to herd.
"This study simply confirms that cow to cow is the most likely route of bovine TB transmission and it provides no firm evidence that a single badger was ever close enough to a cow to infect it with bovine TB.".

And the fact that this hissy fit has exploded from the Badger Trust, gives Professor Hutchings work more credence.

A scientist says it - so it's official.

We have spoken many times including posts here and here on this site, from our own experiences of animal behaviour how routes of transmission can be overlooked by ignoring the obvious. If you scroll down, that posting has a photo of a young, pregnant dairy heifer sniffing a collie. Sniff: as in 'investigate', 'identify' and label friend or foe. That's what animals do. They use scent to identify each other and more importantly in the case of badgers, cattle and tuberculosis, they sniff other species too. And lick. And the most common scent vehicle is urine which is used to attract, repel, warn and mark territories.

It was thought that contact with the infected detritus of TB infected badgers was the main route of transmission opportunity for bTB, but research just published has shown that badgers had more and closer contact with cattle at grass, than with other badgers.
Western Morning News has a more readable version. This story also labels Defra's 'bio garbage' as 'futile'.

But having spent all this cash, and produced the seismic observation that badgers had closer and more frequent contact with cattle, and particularly high ranking 'boss' cattle, than each other, what do you suppose is the conclusion of the boffins at York University and Edinburgh SAC?

Yup, you got it - more cattle testing. So what do you do, test and shoot the dominant boss cow? And then what? Another takes its place. Yup, you shoot that too. Sheesh. Could that be applied to the hierarchy of 'scientists' we wonder? That was a rhetorical question by the way. The paper's conclusion is:

When considered alongside the heterogeneous pattern of cattle contact between farms, our results emphasise the potential benefits of more targeted cattle-bTB control regimes at both between- and within-farm levels. The current testing regimes recommended by Defra have failed to control bTB in cattle [26]. A higher frequency of bTB testing of highly connected markets and farms [17], combined with more frequent, targeted testing of dominant individuals within herds and a similarly targeted and therefore cost-effective application of any prospective cattle bTB vaccination programmes [52], [53], are likely to contribute to more effective and efficient strategies for controlling disease.

We are not sure just how more frequent than 60 day interval testing, the scientists envisage, but surely, that is missing the point?

Update:
Now we've had time to peruse this paper a little more closely, there are few gems worthy of 'quote' status - apart from the conclusion above. During the exercise, collars were attached to 13 cattle and 12 badgers (from two social groups) and data was logged if they had contact of more than 1 second;

" at an average contact initiation distance of 1.69±0.11 m and a contact termination distance of 2.74±0.12 m "

which is considerably less than the 3 - 4 m presumed by previous observations.

The results showed that a single badger (V59) had recordable contacts with 5 of the 13 cattle. Intergroup contact between the two badger social groups was recorded, mainly in September.

Six proximity data loggers (two badger loggers and four cattle loggers) recorded 103 and 32 inter-species interactions respectively (Tables 3 & 4). Overall, two Valley badgers and five cattle were implicated in inter-specific contacts, with the two badgers contacting all of the five cattle. All five cattle were in the top eight for CI rankings in cattle, with four out of the five amongst the top five.

So just two badgers recorded 103 inter species interactions? (Inter species = contact with cattle) and the authors reckon Defra should test the cattle more regularly? Mmmmm. Even though as they point out in the quote below, the badger /cattle contact was higher than between badgers or between cattle.

In multi-host disease systems, where a pathogen can infect more than one of the species present, host species may combine to form a joint host community in which a pathogen can persist, depending on the extent of inter-specific interaction [50]. In terms of direct contacts, the two hosts in our wildlife-livestock system were mainly decoupled from each other, although episodic inter-species contact rates recorded by badger loggers exceeded interaction rates between neighbouring social groups in badgers (Table 3). In populations with strong spacing patterns, such as those caused by territoriality, disease establishment and persistence may be highly dependent on comparatively more frequent inter-species transmission instead of intra-species transmission [2]. This appears to be the case for the Valley badger group in our badger-cattle system."

and finally,

Here, the daily contact frequency and duration were higher in badger-cattle interactions than Valley badger group interactions; the true difference may be even greater due to the lower power settings and hence lower sensitivity employed by the cattle loggers.

More sympathy. No change.

This week, recently appointed Minister for Waste and Recycling within Defra, Jane Kennedy MP, visited farms in North Somerset to meet farmers and vets who were directly affected by and involved with badgerTB.

She sought to reassure sceptical farmers that Defra is ‘absolutely committed’ to tackling bovine TB ...... but made it clear that Defra has no intention of following the Welsh approach of combining tighter cattle controls with a cull of badgers in the most infected areas.

Speaking to Farmers Guardian during the trip, Ms Kennedy said she wanted to hear about the impact of the disease on farm businesses and communities and ‘get a better understanding of what people on the ground believe would make a difference’.

But she acknowledged that her first task was to rebuild farmers’ confidence in Defra, which she admitted had ‘waned’ as a result of its bTB policy.

“Part of my role here is to seek to reassure farmers that we are absolutely committed to tackling this disease. It is not something we think farmers have to live with,” she said.

and added that

" when farmers see the plan we are working on with the TB Eradication Group it will rebuild their confidence in our commitment to tackling this disease.”

And that plan would be? Farmers undertaking wild animal veterinary practise, by vaccinating badgers endemically infected with tuberculosis, with errr, a vaccine for tuberculosis.

She said Defra was ‘working hard’ to bring forward alternative ways of controlling disease in badgers, primarily through an injectable vaccine that is due to be deployed next year. However, she admitted it would ‘take a number of years before we see any impact of that’.

Now far be it from us to rain on Ms. Kennedy's parade, but veterinary opinion on this idea is from two points of the spectrum. One view is that BCG is an unpredictable product and that combined with the inefficiency of cage traps would indicate that even if used as a firebreak, in areas of relatively healthy bagers, any benefit would take a long time to filter through. As in decades. And in 'firebreaks' the minister is not interested.

But in areas where the badgers are already heavily infected with tuberculosis (and these are precisely the zones in which Ms. Kennedy proposes farmers attempt to collect, cage trap, mark and jab them ) then the stress of this operation may quite quickly blow an 'infected' candidate into full blown 'infectious' status, thus making a bad situation a whole lot worse. And it can get worse than 2008's tally of 40,000 dead cattle and almost 10 percent of farms having restrictions during the year, as we showed here.

But the point is that no one really knows what will happen. Least of all the people at VLA who are steering the whole thing. Pragmatically, they collect their salaries and follow their master's voice. It is not for Defra employees to pass judgement - even on such schemes as superficially daft as this one.

The final word on the minister for Waste and Recycling's visit goes to the NFU's South West spokesman Ian Johnson, who commented that:

"Farmers were grateful the Minister was visiting the region for a second time to discuss bTB. But the reality is we are no closer to a solution and no amount of listening and sympathy can make up for that.”

Another prolonged wringing of ministerial hands then. And no change in non-policy. And inevitably, more 'waste' for which this junior minister, and her boss are entirely responsible, and for which the industry will ultimately pay.

TB Free

Before you all get excited, this is not GB we are talking about but New Zealand.
They have a website where their graph of eradication progress is in striking contrast to ours.


Their aim they say, is by 2013, to reach the international (OIE)standard for TB free trading status.

The international standard for TB freedom is reached when 99.8% of domestic cattle and deer herds have been free of bovine TB for three years. This figure has been set by the Office Internationale Epizooties (World Organisation for Animal Health).

And to achieve this, the problem is tackled in the round.
The TB control programme in New Zealand is guided by the National Pest Management Strategy for Bovine TB (NPMS). It is managed by the Animal Health Board under the programme name "TBfree New Zealand".

The programme works on two fronts:

* Disease control - aiming to control and contain the spread of the disease within cattle and deer herds
* Vector control - aiming to control and contain the wild animal species mostly responsible for spreading the disease to cattle and deer.

Please read the last bit of that again. "Aiming to control and contain the wild animal species resposible for spreading disease to cattle and deer."

So what do we do here in the UK?

The boss was in snarl mode this morning and most eloquently described Defra's non existent 'vector control', and its counter productive result thus:

" By killing cattle who have had a slight reaction to the skin test,(IRs) Defra are destroying the natural immunity of the national herd to infection from an untouched wildlife host. And by keeping that wildlife host intact, they are providing a constant supply of fresh victims, with absolutely no natural immunity, thus perpetuating the problem."

Defra may seek to turn New Zealand's map upside down, and persuade themselves that in fact their TB incidence is heading the same way as ours. But it is not. They are within touching distance of becoming officially TB Free. And by the time they are, the numbers of cattle slaughtered in GB will have almost doubled from the 2008 pyre.

Vaccination - a farmer's reaction

An excellent overview of Benn's latest idea prevarication can be found in the Farmers Weekly this week.

Stephen Carr from East Sussex has suckler cows. A lot of suckler cows. And comments that after almost five years of continuous testing his herd, he has:

.....become the most efficient operator of a cattle crush in the UK, to the point that it feels like an extension of my arms. I can also read a cow ear-tag from 30 yards standing on my head and spot a bump, that might suggest a "positive" reactor, on a cow's neck from half a mile away. But another skill is apparently to be added to the list of my highly-developed TB farming skills. As the full extent of the bovine TB crisis that is sweeping across the UK becomes apparent DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn has announced that farmers may be trained as trappers "to handle and inject" badgers as part of a project to test a TB vaccine.

We gave our reaction to this little gem time waster, splendidly illustrated with Ken Wignall's cartoon, in our posting here. By the way, nobody has explained how trapped, vaccinated badgers are to be marked - yet.

But we digress. This is serious stuff. And Mr. Carr is very serious about his impending leap into the realms of wild animal veterinary practice. After reminding readers of the huge rise in tested, sentinel and slaughtered cattle in 2008, which shows no sign of abating in 2009 and may hit the mid 70,000 annually by 2014, he describes his new found employment camouflage gear thus:

I have already sourced my raccoon hat, suede shirt, trousers and moccasins. Not an evening goes by where I am not to be found crawling through the undergrowth and putting an expert ear to the ground.

And concludes:

Mr Benn, who, despite the science, has turned his face against a badger cull for reasons of adverse public reaction, now describes the injectable vaccine project as "a vital step in the development of an oral vaccine which will be suited for large-scale treatment". This smacks of desperate policy-making on the hoof and of a need to be be seen to be doing something to quieten farmers down..

Describing his new job description, and the veterinary clothing requirement Stephen Carr concludes

"No futile gesture is too much trouble provided it helps get a politician out of a difficulty of his own making."

We couldn't have put it better ourselves.

"Bovine TB - A Way forward."

We have spoken many times of our distress, seeing the effect of endemic tuberculosis on the badger population. A professional photographer, has also seen on his own doorstep that effect and is making a film of it.

Devon photographer, Chris Chapman whose work in 2001 so successfully highlighted the tragedy of foot and mouth, is working on a film about the present bovine TB crisis. £3000 has been already raised towards a target of £12000 - and he has begun filming. He writes,

"We are in a TB hotspot here on the edge of Dartmoor and not far from my house is a huge old badger sett which we know has very sick animals...It seems utter madness to me that this can be allowed to continue - no decent farmer would let his animals suffer in this way and yet we have legislation in place that prolongs suffering in wildlife. ...
We have good vets on board willing to speak, and a retired bacteriologist who will speak about vaccination (without being gagged!).."

From the press release:

"Bovine TB - A Way Forward will highlight the current anomaly whereby vets and farmers, under present legislation, are unable to take control of the crisis. The film will cover as many viewpoints, suggestions and arguments as is possible and will offer a positive way forward for both farmers and the public to understand the interaction between cattle and badgers and the need to identify and accommodate healthy 'green' badgers..
.... I've never been a political animal with my camera, but I do believe in highlighting the issues from the grass roots, especially when the people on the ground offer sensible solutions to a problem.
Bovine TB - A Way Forward is a not for profit film and is being made with the help of sponsorship from business, the farming industry and private individuals. Its target for the complete production will exceed £12000 and to date over £3000 has been raised..."

If you would like to contribute, and are interested in further details, please contact Chris Chapman direct on 01647 231508 or by email: chapman88@btinternet.com for an information pack.
Chris would be grateful to receive contributions - however small - from anyone with an interest in what he is doing.

All Fools Day ruling

Today, April 1st, the Court of Appeal ruled against the NFU's challenge to Defra's tabular valuation system, brought last year on behalf of several farmers, but headed by David Partridge.

Handing down the appeal judgment, Lord Justice Lawrence Collins admitted his colleague in the initial case had ‘delivered a comprehensive and careful judgment’ but ruled that there was no discrimination in Defra’s approach to the valuation of high value animals.

He said: “I accept the Secretary of State’s submission that the true value of any animal once it has tested positive for TB is the salvage value of its carcass.

'The salvage value of its carcass' ? Hmmm. If that is the case, tabular valuation could go lower. Much lower. One wonders whether the learned judge would have formed the same opinion had the sentinel victim of Defra's non-policy on bTB, been his own animal? Carcass value, and him powerless to prevent a repeat performance? Farmers Guardian has the story.

The NFU, which backed the case, said it was deeply disappointed at the outcome and would now be considering the next stage in the legal process.

This could involve an appeal at the House of Lords which could yet overturn the Court of Appeal’s decision. More here

Meanwhile, during March another anomaly raised its head on those infamous tables. Once again, as we reported a year ago the 'value' of a non-pedigree dairy cow, over 36 months, outstripped her pedigree herd mate by £110. April tables can be seen here and still show a £62 advantage for leaving your pride pedigree certificate in the filing cabinet.

Welsh announce a badger cull

As English farmers are being invited to diversify into wild animal veterinary practice, and vaccinate badgers endemically infected with tuberculosis, with a vaccine for, errr, tuberculosis, the Wesh Assembly has announced a cull of infected badgers.

Last year the Minister announced her intention to implement a comprehensive, practical and proportionate programme of action in order to tackle the disease. Since that statement, the number of cattle slaughtered due to TB has continued to increase. In 2008 over 12,000 cattle were slaughtered in Wales: 52 per cent more than in 2007, with associated rises in costs. The Welsh Assembly Government believes that this acceleration in incidence is unacceptable and unsustainable.

Speaking at the National Assembly for Wales the Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones said,

“There have been attempts over many years to control this disease and they have failed. Each member state is however obliged under an EU Directive to develop an eradication programme in order to “accelerate, intensify or carry through” the eradication of the disease.

.
After describing a programme to test every herd in Wales and its progress, she continued:

“There is no point, however, tackling one source of infection only to ignore another. This only allows the infection to return. I want to see a Welsh livestock and Welsh wildlife co-existing in a disease free environment.”

Don't we all?

The cull area described by the Welsh Assembly, is likely to be in the Pembroke area, which has already seen cattle carnage on a vast scale, after years of a steady, pernicious and expenisive drip feed of recycled 'environmental' infection.

As the minister says,

" There is no point in tackling one source of infection, only to ignore the other."

Precisely.

Waiting in line...

We are grateful to cartoonist Ken Wignall for permission to reproduce his work, first published in Farmers Guardian 21st March. Succinct and hugely entertaining, the cartoon of badgers waiting in line at a Defra TB Vaccination Centre had us in stitches. The whole idea of vaccinating wild badgers, endemically infected with tuberculosis with a tuberculosis vaccine, has us in stitches, but let that pass.


The guy with the needle wouldn't be our Trevor, would it? Or are the Badger Trust not involved in this charade? And the redhead with the clip file? Our former Minister of (some) Animal Health, Margaret Beckett, no less. Obviously totting up potential votes that this little time waster may glean for the next election.

We are not against vaccination per se. But in this case, with this vaccine (BCG), to be used in half a dozen 'trial areas' set in areas of endemic infection and administered by farmers 'trained' to capture and jab badgers? Sheeesh.
A scientific colleague with vast epidemiological experience commented on the announcement:

"The best that can be hoped for from the latest announcement by DEFRA of their plan [for farmers] to vaccinate badgers with BCG is that will do no harm and not make matters worse. Since the likelihood of a less than reliable vaccine such as BCG being effective in the face of the massive challenge from naturally infected badgers in the field seems highly improbable.

However the cynical will observe that, like the Randomised Badger Culling Trials, it buys the Government 5 more years of prevarication (or at least until they are thrown out of office) when they can pretend they are doing something to stem this wretched disease that is out of control in large parts of the country.

The graphs on our posting below, illustrates how this Government has allowed the problem to escalate since they took office in 1997.

Defra scientists have been fiddling with BCG jabs for decades. It is a very uncertain vaccine, with, we understand, efficacy of around 75 per cent (range 10 - 85) and that when used on an uninfected candidate. Wild badgers are to be cage trapped, and remembering - how could we forget? - the chaos in achieving a meaningful scoop during the RBCT Badger Dispersal Trial, what is the level of capture and vaccination expected for this little lot? And what is the result of vaccinating a badger already infected with tuberculosis, but not necessarily shedding bacteria? Stress alone is likely to blow that status to infectious, and the result of that on surrounding cattle herds would be disastrous.

Trapping is usually done over a period of weeks to mop up trap-shy individuals; or just 8 nights if you were part of the hit-and-run visits by the RBCT. So how are badgers caught on day one to be identified and marked to avoid be jabbed twice? Or three times? Double eartags, a holding number and database? Luminous paint? Microchips? A clipped ear? Chopped tail? Rather you than me.

Polite message to the Right Honourable Hilary Benn, who thinks this is a brilliant idea. When you do one, we'll be right behind you..

Who dreamed up all this? Hilary Benn is advised not by veterinary professionals, with field experience of infectious diseases and their control but by this chap. Now forgive any lapse of memory here, but his CV mentions NASA? Wasn't it this organisation that muddled imperial measurements and metric and buggered up a space probe, costing $billions? And when the NASA modellers were ousted found other gainful employment, did not many move to the financial sector?

Our new Chief Scientific Advisor lists on his not inconsiderable CV 'The World Bank'. And is it not such financial institutions, hell bent on bonus-driven pyramid selling of unsustainable debt, repackaged to disguise its contents and modelled to appear AAA sound, that has brought the world to the brink of recession? And then that noveau religion, climate change, and its ability to hoover up cash that might otherwise appear as 'taxes' in a government balance sheet. All appear on the Professor's past achievements as does 'Global Bio Deversity Assessment'. But not one word about the control of infectious diseases, which some may think is a little odd.

So, will the badgers come to call and stand in line for their jabs? Our Chief Scientific Adviser obviously thinks that they will. Job done then.