TB takeaways?

One thing that most farmers with cattle locked down just cannot get their heads around is how badgers can be moved around the country, quite legally.

The main culprits, are rescue 'sanctuaries' which take in orphaned or injured badgers, 'mend' them (maybe) and then release. The problem is they do not necessarily release these animals where they were found, but any patch of land where the owner has given permission.


Based in Somerset, we covered the Secret World sanctuary's exploits in this 2004 posting. And owner Pauline Kidner quite openly said that she questioned whether releasing these animals where they had been originally found was wise as when Secret World had done this, the badgers were mugged again. Or even killed.

Yesterday, Western Morning News carried another 'aaarrrrr' story from Secret World, illustrated with a armful of baby badgers.

These cubs are being hand reared and fed every few hours by the country's most experienced badger expert, Pauline Kidner, and her dedicated team.

Some of the cubs admitted at Secret World are from the area designated to be used in a badger culling exercise in a government initiative to help farmers with the catastrophic TB virus in cattle where it is argued that infected badgers are to blame.

It would seem pedantic to remind the author that m.bovis is not a virus but a bacterium, but we'll do it anyway. The main point is that these cute, cuddly, baby badgers have come in from 'areas designated to be used in a badger culling exercise'.
From areas of endemic tuberculosis then. And where exactly will they end up?

For this we would remind readers of answers to our PQs on this subject:
1. That it is NOT an offence to take a badger from the wild, if the reason for its removal is: "solely for the purpose of tending it". furthermore, as a native species:

"there are no specific restrictions under current law regulating where badgers are released once they have recovered. Normally once fit enough to be released into the wild, the badger will be returned to the location where it was originally found. This approach is recommended on welfare grounds due to their territorial nature, and also to avoid transmitting disease."

6th Jan 2004: Col. 249W [1444446]

Not by Secret World it isn't.

2. The captive badgers are supposed to be tested three times using the old Brock test, which fizzled out as a live test as it was so unreliable. It delivered just 47 per cent sensitivity on a negative reading. However this procedure is not compulsory.

"testing guidelines are not mandatory, but are set down in a voluntary code of practise'

30th Jan 2004: Col. 543W [150609]

3. Animals testing positive should be euthanized but what about the animals they have socialised with?:

This protocol does not advise destruction of badgers who have had contact with a test positive badger. It should be emphasised that this voluntary protocol was not devised or approved by Defra."

Ref 6th Feb 2004: Col. 1109W [150583]

Well who the blazes did devise or approve it then? And why cannot Defra lift its collective head out of the sand to block this very worrying (for cattle farmers)loophole?

This week, we have heard of relocated badgers being taken to Leicestershire's new National Forest, to South Yorkshire and even further north and eastwards. And from where have they come? As Ms. Kidner proudly says in WMN this week: some are 'from areas which are designated to be used in a badger culling exercise".

You really couldn't make it up.

Jobs for the boys

... and girls. Doing what? Vaccinating badgers of course. A very stylish website set up by ex FERA graduates, now seeking employment and decorated with some healthy looking badgers explains:

"In an effort to prevent the spread of disease between cattle, around 25,000 cattle were compulsory slaughtered in the UK in 2010."

They are correct about the UK testing and slaughtering cattle by the shed load, but not the amount. In 2010 England alone slaughtered almost 25,000. But the total for GB, including Wales and Scotland, brought Defra's annual carnage to 32,737 - but let that pass. The website continues:

"To promote a sustainable future for farming and wildlife in the UK, it is widely accepted that we need to address the reservoir of disease in badgers. Badger vaccination can play a role in reducing the overall level of disease and related transmission risk, and also help prevent the spread of disease to new areas."

Can it? Can it really? Or are we getting confused with that mischievous, not to say outrageous headline of November 2010? This is where 262 pre- screened badgers (out of a potential haul of 844) were jabbed to assess the health and safety (to badgers) of BCG. This trial was not to assess efficacy of the vaccine. For that we need to go to this paper, which actually had a look at what happened to their pre-screened badgers which were vaccinated, exposed to m.bovis and then euthanased. At postmortem, all had lesions and all were shedding. Using BCG at 10x the normal strength had a more beneficial effect than the standard rate, except on one poor old brock who died. Not in vain, one hopes?

Our potential jabbers continue, posing the question 'can vaccination work?' and answer their own question, more with hope than accuracy:

"Laboratory and field studies have demonstrated that vaccination of badgers by injection with BCG significantly reduces the progression, severity and excretion of TB infection."

Define significantly? The actual vaccination trial referred to above, achieved a reduction of bacterium shed of 13 percent. Well hallelujah for that. And hard on the heels of that spurious 74% efficacy claim, with no mention of the prescreening of the 844 candidates in the field trial, came the usual Defra fudge "the data should not be used to support this claim." It seems it was then and it is now.

But this week, the three main farming unions of Wales delivered a joint letter to the Welsh Assembly Government, pointing out that despite 'intensive cattle measures', their farmers were losing cattle to TB in increasing numbers. They also reminded their government that the advice on badger vaccination had been updated.
Specifically, in November 2011 a memorandum by those involved in the most recent vaccine trials made it clear that the work to date

“…cannot tell us the degree of vaccine efficacy”; that “A definitive figure for efficacy could only be determined by field-testing the vaccine on a large scale over a long period of time. Several thousand badgers would need to be killed to determine the presence and severity of TB at detailed post-mortem examination”; and that “…we do not know how deployment of the badger vaccine in the field would affect TB incidence in cattle.”

And in the absence of large scale field trials, modelling has been used to assess the possible impact of a vaccination programme. And the best effort of these electronics ...

"... predicted a 9% reduction in confirmed cattle incidences by the end of a five year vaccination operation, and “an overall reduction in confirmed cattle herd breakdowns of 19% over 10 years within the core area, compared with 34% for a cull and 40% for a cull with ring vaccination.”

And finally the cost of this bright idea from Brock Vaccination Ltd? We can only compare with the now defunct Vaccine Deployment Project, which posted a cost of £1,440 / sq km. annually, as badger BCG is a beneficial, ongoing, yearly event.

The operating protocol, if the FERA guidelines are followed, is restrictive, bureaucratic and expensive. Fine if remuneration is drip fed from government, but not so good if farmers are paying and expecting results. After the initial survey and open trap trial run, two nights only are advised and certainly no more than 4 - even if not all, or even none of the target badgers are caught. BCG vaccine is a live attenuated product requiring activating with a liquid solution. But that has to done at the refrigerated container within the vehicle and not trapside. So having inspected the baited traps and said 'good morning' to any occupants, operatives are required to trek back to their 4x4, mix up the required doses [and a few extra] and trek back. Mixed vaccines must be used within 4 hours. The list of 'required clothing' is comprehensive, as are the specialist cages, wickets (for squashing badgers against the side of the cage) animal grade peanuts, treacle and 3-5kg stones. Protective masks and goggles are stipulated when approaching badgers. Perhaps we could fit them cattle too.

Meanwhile NFU newbie, Adam Quinney
has offered the Badger Trust his TB restricted farm to play on, and they've found that catching wild badgers ain't easy.

"We asked the Badger Trust to put their money where their mouth is and, to be fair, they have done a lot of work on the farm. We have both learned a lot, including that catching badgers is not straightforward.”

That predicted benefit (9 percent in 5 years) is revealing, in that the time scale is several badger generations of unscreened, infected animals. The Brock Vaccination site explains that the:

benefits of badger vaccination will be realised over a number of years, it is not a ‘quick fix’ solution, however we believe it is a sustainable one.

The cynical among us might say, sustainable for whom?

Legal challenge

Farmers Guardian today report a legal challenge by the Badger Trust, against Defra's proposals for a farmer DIY badger cull. According to the report, the Trust will ask the court to overturn Defra’s decision on the basis of the following three points:

* That the culls, which Defra estimates will reduce TB incidence in cattle by 12-16 per cent after 9 years, will not meet the strict legal test of ‘preventing the spread of disease’ in the areas being licensed, and may ‘in fact amount to a recipe for spreading the disease’

* That the cost impact assessment underpinning DEFRA’s decision is flawed, as its cost assumptions are based on the farmer free-shooting option, estimated to be approximately 10 times cheaper than cage-trapping badgers before killing them). The trust claims that after the free-shooting method may be ruled out for being inhumane, ineffective or unsafe to the public in the pilots, leaving only the more costly ‘trap and shoot’ option until the end of the 4-year licence.

* That guidance which DEFRA issued to Natural England is invalid as killing badgers is not one of Natural England’s original functions, which are mainly focused on maintaining biodiversity. It claims culling badgers ‘for the prevention of spread of disease’ remains the Secretary of State’s own function under the relevant legislation..

It is not often that we would agree with the Badger Trust, but on two of these three points, we concur. It is difficult to see how anyone wanting to nail a potential Judicial Review would use as an example, a protocol so different from that which is proposed now, and costed so differently. As we have said numerous time, the RBCT Badger Dispersal Trial, using cage traps for 8 nights very occasionally, interrupted for at least a year with FMD and then having a change of protocol in 2004, showed us just how not to control tuberculosis in badgers. So why use its results, particularly the whole miserable 9 year span, especially as its Commander in Chief was quite open in his oral evidence, that culling badgers was certainly not going to be the outcome of 'his' trial?

The current proposals are for 6 weeks night shooting annually. Totally incomparable with the aforementioned charade, or even the smaller Clean Ring clearances effected by MAFF in response to cattle breakdowns until 1997. Both these and the later Thornbury badger clearance lasted for weeks only, but kept cattle and other mammals clear of TB for a decade or more. So why let the mathematical modellers loose with this rubbish, which refers to a different protocol, over a different time scale, as justification for any future cull?

Costs of this proposal are certainly variable, depending on who is speaking. Minister Jim Paice is sticking with his £1.4m per area, while the NFU reckon £5/acre or less. Which ever way you cut it, that is a huge gap. So cost v. benefit is a sticky one, But not so sticky is the Badger Trusts's assertion that controlling wildlife, 'to prevent the spread of disease' is an AHVLA competence.
It is, or it should be.

We covered that convoluted bundle of legislation in this posting. And from what we read, the chance to wrest disease control back from the quango calling itself 'Natural' England, and place it firmly in AHVLA's lap was October 2011. We posted this information in August last year and quoted NE's responsibilities under the Protection of Badgers Act thus:

Natural England is authorised to do so by what is known as “a Part 8 Agreement ” made in accordance with section 78 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006;

We pointed out that this involved not merely licenses to move badgers causing damage, but the issue of licences under Section 10(2)(a) of the Protection of Badgers Act (1992) which deals with preventing the spread of disease.

This agreement came into effect on 1st October 2006. It's duration is twenty years from that date, and a review is allowed for in five years. That was October 2011. Was an opportunity missed? We agree that AHVLA should most certainly have responsibility for controlling the spread of a Grde 1 zoonosis. That it was ever moved away is a matter of shame on the Department now calling itself DEFRA.


And if everyone else is as fed up as we are with the constant stream of library pictures of shiny, bushy tailed badgers to illustrate this polemic - here's one which died yesterday. Of tuberculosis.

His master's voice

At the NFU conference this week, Defra minister, Jim Paice slammed another couple of nails into our cattle's hooves - courtesy of his puppet-masters in the European Union.

Both Farmers Guardian and
Farmers Weekly report that farmers with overdue tests which reveal reactors, will be penalised through reduced tabular value compensation.

"Farmers who have overdue TB tests will receive reduced compensation if they have cattle slaughtered as a result of the disease".

That sounds pretty fair - until you realise that dear old SAM, that all singing, all dancing new computer is having hiccoughs with his paperwork. And some farmers are not receiving their timed window for testing at all. And that most definitely is very unfair.

The second change is to cattle attending shows or moving within a 28 day window, and is described by FG thus:

"Cattle which have had TB tests in the past 30 days, and those which have shared accommodation with other cattle at shows, will no longer be exempt from pre-movement tests."

And then speaking about linked holdings and other things giving the European Union FVO indigestion - and there are many - this sanguine comment from Defra's chief vet, Nigel Gibbens:

"At the moment we have a history of being behind the disease."

You mean you can't test and kill our cattle quickly enough? Farms enduring six 60 day Short Interval tests in one year is insufficient? Shame on you. And slaughtering even more cattle, preventing restocking and cutting the knees from Approved beef finishing units, while letting the source of up to 90 per cent of TB breakdowns in hotspot areas run free, helps how?

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

We covered this crazy one sided policy, as it had been operated by Paice and Gibben's predecessors, in this posting.
But if he is to be forgiven for not knowing his Ministry's history on TB control, perhaps Jim should read his parliamentary predecessor's Parliamentary Questions. And then revisit his own NFU speech with an adjusted time scale - and budget. Owen Paterson MP asked for the result of the just 6-8 months badger clearance at Thornbury. The answer:

"No confirmed cases of tuberculosis in cattle in the area were disclosed by the tuberculin test the the ten year period following the cessation of gassing" [150573]

So not 20 years of buggering about trying to cull out infected groups in ones and twos, very occasionally? And why should there have been this astonishingly quick result, we asked? Anything else done? Biosecurity? Extra cattle measures? Pre movement testing? No cattle movements at all? Nope. The answer:

" The fundamental difference between the Thornbury area and other areas [] where bovine tuberculosis was a problem, was the systematic removal of badgers from the Thornbury area. No other species was similarly removed. No other contemporaneous change was identified that could have accounted for the reduction in TB incidence within the area" [157949]

But his masters have spoken, as they also speak on wildlife control - but are you listening Mr. Paice or are your ears tight shut? Tightening up cattle controls will only work if wildlife reservoirs are addressed simultaneously, as our masters in the EU observed in this DG SANCO paper.

In 2009, the UK received 10 million euros for TB 'control' by which Defra meant testing and slaughtering more cattle. This week, Paice dropped this little gem into his NFU speech. He said :

... the European Commission was ‘minded’ to reject the Government’s annual TB Eradication plan, which would result in it withholding €30 million (£25.4m) of EU funding for TB controls. “That would have been pretty disastrous,” he said.

One could say it was pretty disastrous to operate a one sided policy which hoovered up such increasing sums of cash which offer no benefit to taxpayers, farmers or sick badgers, at a time of global austerity. But let that pass. 'We're all in this together' we're told. But that is not quite true. Paice also hinted of a 'share my pain' package for livestock farmers. Nice one.

We have said it before, and will continue to say that current cattle controls are more than adequate (annual testing and double fenced boundaries), provided the maintenance hosts of tuberculosis are removed.

And if these reservoirs are not tackled simultaneously, then no amount of cattle testing, isolation measures or culling will work to reduce the environmental contamination which is fuelling the scourge known as 'bovine'TB.

That EU elephant again

Slowly but surely the UK system of TB testing and cattle controls (if not wildlife control) is coming from that elephant in the room - the EU. We reported a year ago how many herds would need two tests before herd movement restrictions could be lifted. And that situation has now caught up with the Treasury bean-counters. Coupled with an insidious rise in incidence, purely anecdotal and unable to be officially tracked after August due to the inability of Defra's new toy to add up, it seems that the costs of testing for bTB is causing not a little indigestion.

We referred to the February 1st. EFRA committee report in the previous posting on the SAM computer problems, but after discussing closing some AHVLA regional investigation centres, much of its content centred around TB testing and how much veterinary practices were paid for this. It was revealed that although an agreement 'memorandum' signed by both the Ministry and the veterinary profession was in place, Defra now find that they need to alter the basis for this. Although they seemed more than a little reluctant to say why.

The gist of the committee's dialogue centred around a 4/5 year 'discussion' with the main veterinary organisations and their contractual obligations for the work of testing our cattle. Chief executive of Defra, Catherine Brown explained that she had been meeting the BVA very regularly.

"In fact, for a period of time I was meeting with them every month for discussions about how we could move on from a very unsatisfactory situation with a memorandum of agreement that was signed with them and MAFF 15 years previously, which did not have any quality standards in it. They were unhappy because they thought that they should have been being paid more. I was unhappy because I thought that we could not demonstrate we were getting value for money. "

... and then there was that elephant - the word 'illegal' in much the same sentence as 'competition'. Ms. Brown explained that she had talked to the BVA 'intensely over a long period of time':

We were unable to come up with a mutually agreeable solution, and it turns out that it is probably just as well. It would have been illegal, because we are spending so much money and you have to offer the opportunity for competition for more than £113,000 of Government expenditure. We are spending about £20 million a year across the country on TB testing.

(And with the 2011 EU regs requiring double the amount of testing now kicking in, plus increased incidence, that figure can only increase no matter how much Government tweaks it in the short term - ed.)

Thus a rigmarole of jargon spattered dialogue follows as Ms. Brown explains that tendering for the testing of our cattle must comply with 'quality standards', have 'delivery partners', comply with 'legal advice', be 'anti-competitive', not 'against European rules' (she did say the word - once) and following Minister Jim Paice's point that 'legal advice was the trigger'. Ms. Brown replied ;

"The legal advice was important. It was two things: it was the legal advice, and also we were not making a great deal of progress. For example, they [the vets] felt that they were underpaid; we had been paying them inflation raises for many years. They felt that they would like to get paid more. I felt that I would like them to make some efficiency savings and pay them less,... "

Devon MP Neil Parrish pointed out that he would like to explore this 'tendering process' and asked how small veterinary practises could compete on a 'tendering' basis:

"What they are worried about is the fact that we are going to get a meat hygiene-type system, where we are going to have one or two companies bidding for the whole country, and vets from all over the world coming in, and there is no personal relationship whatsoever between the farmers and those vets coming in to do the testing.

Jim Paice then blustered waded in with the prophetic observation that;

... having lived through the development of the Meat Hygiene Service, to which you referred, that I have no intention of replicating that experience, I assure you.

That would be replicating this particular 'experience' then would it? And thus we can ignore all the European tweaks previously referred to? No we cannot.

As Ms. Brown pointed in answer to a question from George Eustice:

It is not mainly about saving money; it is mainly about being able to demonstrate some kind of basis for the price that we are paying. [] But it is not actually primarily about saving money.

. Useless Eustice pressed his point again, all the while tiptoeing around that elephant.

" I am intrigued by this idea that you have to negotiate with the BVA. It is almost as if they are a trade union; it is like having a discussion with tube drivers or something. Why are you in that position? If you are paying too much, why can you not just top-slice the fee and, if you have poor performers, stop using them as suppliers? Surely individual practices would not be being paid more than the £113,000 threshold in total, or are they ?"

Although Useless Eustice forgot to mention it, £113,000 p.a is the current European Union threshold for procurement tendering and Ms. Brown confirmed that some practises did indeed receive in excess of that figure. So why not side step them, suggested Useless Eustice?

"I am just curious as to why you subjected yourself to this ludicrous EU procurement process when maybe you could have just side-stepped the BVA and dealt with the issue directly?"

Because she can't?
Procurement is an EU competence which cannot be side stepped. Just like Mr. Paice's MHS 'experience' which he is minded not to repeat. But that option has been signed away, Mr. Useless. Had you missed it in various Treaties?

Ms. Brown replied:

" I made every possible attempt to check that we definitely had to go through the procurement process, and we definitely do. [] The legal advice could not be clearer: we do not have a choice on tendering."

So it would appear that courtesy of the EU, the LVI vets are for the high jump as well as TB restricted farms.


By restricting TB restocking options considerably and effectively cutting the legs from potential buyers into approved units, the EU have left hundreds of England's TB restricted farms with little income and no outlet for their surplus stock at all. And with their TB testing potentially to be carried out by foreign vets. Excellent.

But back to that elephant. It does occasionally have something to say which makes sense. We covered one such trumpet in this posting quoting DG SANCO on the thorny problem of wildlife reservoirs of bTB.

The elimination or reduction of the risk posed by an infected wildlife reservoir enables the other measures contained in the programme to yield the expected results, whereas the persistence of TB in these wildlife populations impedes the effective elimination of the disease.

And as the posting below, which covers the 'immediate effect' ban of movements of some TB restricted stock shows, the elusive European beast can move swiftly when it suits. On the procurement directive and the cats cradle the BVA have made for themselves on testing charges we await developments with interest, but on the DG SANCO recommendations - don't hold your breath.

That particular elephant's trunk is in a definite knot.

EU clamp down

Following an audit last autumn our lords and masters in the European Union are less than happy with AHVLA's licensing of cattle movements onto restricted farms.

This is the news release which announced the changes.

Following a recent audit by the European Commission’s Food and Veterinary Office (FVO), who are responsible for ensuring that Community legislation on food safety and animal health and welfare is properly implemented and enforced, the decision has been taken to end this arrangement with immediate effect as it fails to comply with the requirements of EU legislation for TB eradication.

Briefly, as we understand it, following a new confirmed breakdown, no movements on can take place until the removal of the reactor(s) and completion of a 60 day test. Should that test still reveal problems, then licensing may be applied for, but cattle coming onto the holding must be isolated.

There is more on the AQUs (approved quarantine units for young stock) and on beef finishing units, which we will add as we get solid info. At present it appears that the former may go altogether and the latter be restricted from buying further stock should a reactor be revealed either at testing or through abattoir surveillance. And that seriously limits outlets for stock from TB restricted farms.

Farmers Guardian has more points on this story, on this link.

SAM chaos - it " should never have happened"

Speaking in oral evidence to the EFRA committee on 1st February, SAM, Defra's new, all singing but not dancing, computer system gets a mention in the last few minutes of the video.

More of that session in a separate posting. But to save you ploughing through over an hour of yawning and banter important information which affects every livestock keeper, Farmers Guardian reports the highlights.

Asked by Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee chairman Anne McIntosh if she anticipated the problems would be resolved and when, Catherine Brown (Defra Chief Executive) said:

“They are not resolved yet. We are in the process of resolving them. We should have resolved them already. It is extremely urgent to resolve the problems.”

Errr yes. But to do that, first one must accept that there is a problem. And reading the jargon spattered blumph dropping through farmer's letterboxes about these computer problems, (problems of which farmers are on the receiving end) over the last months, one could be forgiven for thinking that such problems were 'minor' - if they existed at all.

Ms. Brown went on to say that AHVLA had put measures in place to mitigate the impacts of the problems on the ground and had ‘put in fixes’ to the system over the past two weeks. There is another batch of fixes going in on 2 February; there is another going in on the 9th.

"We are continuing to fix it as fast as we possibly can." she said.

.
(We understand there have been several hundred fixes to date - they are ongoing - ed)
Devon Conservative MP Neil Parish described huge problems faced by his constituents, including getting licences to move cattle to slaughter etc. He asked:

“Bluntly, why is it that, in the 21st century, the Government put in a system that they pay good money for and it does not damn well work?”

Ms Brown acknowledged that it ‘should not happen’.

“We have a lot of administrative staff doing things that we should not need to be doing if all those minor things were not wrong with the system. It is not a minor problem overall; it is a significant problem, and it is achieving our absolutely top attention, but it is not like one cataclysmic or hugely insoluble problem with the system that might mean it is never going to work. It is a succession of small things,” she said.

And that most revealing description of this AHVLA chaos is a far cry from the sanguine and anodyne load of tosh delivered to every livestock keeper last week which we reported in this posting and which was described here.

Apart from the glitches, fixes and other problems, we understand that SAM has a major flaw which could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as 'small'. And that relates to its data input. Once on screen, data cannot be changed without losing all the input. This is causing much extra input time if TB test data is to be recorded correctly. But worse than that, we have been told that once SAM's 'Submit' button is pressed, data cannot be retrieved for amendment. SAM has swallowed it and will not regurgitate for any corrections.

Which could explain why cattle culled in the 2001 FMD carnage are still appearing on some farmer's testing instructions - like SAM, they refuse to die.

Crisis? Wot crisis?

Last week, all livestock keepers in SW England received a letter, explaining new changes and "why they are necessary". Now 'change' - if not undertaken for the sake of it - usually implies improvement, but with Government in general and its computer technology in particular, that is rarely the case.

We given you several glimpses of the new SAM computer's chaos in previous postings. The present version of SAM it seems, can neither add up, nor cope with anything other than 100 percent accurate data. One mistake and there is no 'delete' button. The whole lot must be scratched and operatives start again from the beginning. Add to this toxic mix, AHVLA experienced admin staff received their marching orders just as SAM was launched, and were replaced by agency part timers with no knowledge of 14 digit eartag numbers or the 1mm difference in testing results which can mean life or death.

This recipe has given England's 'livestock keepers' severe indigestion, with some farmers receiving bundles of SAM generated paperwork, most inaccurate and many repeated - while others have received nothing at all.

But back to this anodyne and understated letter which explains that SAM will be the all singing, all dancing system which "improves the way we manage TB testing and other disease controls."

"SAM will enable us to do this by automating more of our processes, allowing us to to reduce the number of administrative staff we employ, saving the tax payer over £2 million per annum."

the letter continues:

"SAM, which will replace increasingly out-of-date and expensive to maintain computer systems, can also be used by private veterinary practices, who do the majority of on-farm testing, enabling better and quicker communication between us."

Sounds good? The reality is that vets are still unable to use SAM, that AHVLA's original Help Line number connected with a London solicitor's office and that at present, SAM is losing data, losing reactors, losing herds under restriction, losing historic test data and can't add up.

Our letter ended by dumbing down these many and serious glitches and an apology if 'you have experienced issues with the level of our customer service, for example by incorrect or duplicated correspondence'. Somewhat of an understatement, we feel.

But this week, Farmers Guardian reports that it has received sight of an internal letter about dear old SAM, and the terminology in this document is substantially different from our dumbed down sheet. On that 'time saving veterinary input', the paper reports:

AHVLA staff have therefore been forced to input test result data sent in by private vets, a time consuming process exacerbated by a glitch in the system preventing user errors from being corrected. This is often causing the ‘whole action’ to be cancelled, requiring the information to be manually inputted.

This has caused serious delays in processing test charts, forcing AHVLA to bring in temporary staff to reduce the backlog.

The knock-on effects have included, in AHVLA’s words, ‘confusing and incorrect’ paperwork for farmers, creating uncertainty over the timing and results of tests and nature of disease restrictions. There have also been delays in the collection of reactors from farms and the issuing of calf export health certificates, while uncertainty over the accuracy of data has forced Defra to postpone the publication of national TB statistics.

and of future data? AHVLA say they do not know when the problems with SAM will be ironed out, or whether more will surface.

... the agency’s chief operating officer Nina Purcell gives a fuller account of the situation, describing the roll out of the system as a ‘crisis’ and admitting that a number of ‘outstanding defects’ remain.

She reveals that ‘key fixes’ to Release 6 are due to be implemented in February by AHVLA and its IT contractor IBM. But she acknowledges the agency does ‘not yet know’ how long it will take to resolve the key issue of the link up between the SAM system and private vets.

So a review of the roll out has been commissioned. This will look at:

' how it [SAM] is operating and whether we are on track to meet the objectives of the original business case’

This is due to report at the end of February.

'Business case'?? 'Managing and controlling TB in your herds'?? ' Objectives' ?? And this describes a system which AHVLA describe internally as in 'Crisis', and which they have no idea when or if it can be fixed??

That sort of civil service-speke is guaranteed to enrage the most mild of 'livestock keepers', on the receiving end of such anodyne platitudes and downright lies from his so-called 'Service provider'. And referring to farmers tied down with TB restriction as 'customers' will enrage even further. The word 'customer' implies a choice of provider - and we have none. We also no longer have contact with a local name in a local office for advice on TB .... and now we have SAM.

Constructive ignorance?

We have spoken many times about overspill of bTB into other species, particularly alpacas. And we have spoken to Defra about this overspill too. Not with any great degree of success it has to be said - but hey, on this blog, we're nothing if not persistent, bloody minded ? tenacious.

We are aware of the cost and regulatory implications of flagging up bTB in group mammals other than bovines, but as cattle owners, we are equally aware of the problems which may occur for our animals (or clean wildlife), with onward transmission from such animals bouncing unchecked around the country, coughing up or excreting TB bacteria.
We face enough of that from translocated badgers.

From the alpaca TB support group we have data which just a handful of members have provided of their losses over the last couple of years. It is an eye watering over 422 animals. While another small group of alpaca owners, not members of this group, have lost a shed load more, with 28 going into Defra's mincer from just two breeders.

In July last year, hidden within a TB paper issued by Defra was the following snippet:

" We will be improving the current statistics collected for each non-bovine species to provide monthly statistics for the numbers of herds or flocks infected; number of animals’ skin or blood tested; number of TB test reactors and cases removed"

What Defra did not say of course, was when they would clarify these figures. And last week, we were alerted to a PQ answered by Defra minister, Jim Paice on just this subject.

Dan Rogerson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many mammals other than cattle were identified with or slaughtered for bovine tuberculosis as a result of (a) microbial culture sample, (b) reports from local veterinary practitioners, (c) gross pathology examinations by veterinary investigation centres, (d) disclosing diagnostic tests including intradermal skin or blood assays and (e) reports from Meat Hygiene Service examinations at abattoirs in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007, (iii) 2008, (iv) 2009 and (v) 2010. [89799]

Mr Paice: The risk to non-bovine species from TB is assessed as generally low and the surveillance system is therefore proportionate to these risks. This means figures are not collected or broken down by the specific categories the hon. Member has requested. Moreover, these scenarios are not mutually exclusive for a particular case and it would be difficult to allocate each case to one of these scenarios. In addition, TB in non-bovine species is not considered to have been “identified” until positive culture results are confirmed.

Figures from 1997 on the annual number of total samples from non-bovine animals that are (a) processed by the AVHLA laboratories and (b) found positive for M. bovis infection, are broken down by species and are available on DEFRA's website at:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/files/defra-stats-foodfarm-landuselivestock-tb-other-otherspecies-111124.xls

(These figures do not include the number of animals slaughtered from a herd where TB has been confirmed when M. bovis is not cultured from that animal.)

So, back we are directed to these damn statistics which only count the primary, single sample which a) confirms bTB and b) identifies the spoligotype. No skin or blood test failures and subsequent slaughterings, no deaths with TB confirmed by pm, and no knacker collections. As we said in our posting of 2010, all these have disappeared.


Defra seem to have quite a problem lining all their ducks in a row on this. They simply cannot count. This alpaca was not a primary sample death, so he too 'disappeared' - even with open TB lesions right up his trachea to his throat.


We aired the problem again in this posting as well. But the boss is more familiar with these duplicitous Ministerial shenanigans than perhaps we are. And while we would assume that these figures for alpaca (and other ) deaths are located 'somewhere', regardless of the minister's convoluted answer, he calls it deliberate and constructive ignorance.

SAM says 2 + 2 = 3 (or is it 5?)

Everyone, from the Treasury's bean-counters downwards to your lowly bloggers, watch Defra's monthly TB statistics for signs of change. Over the past decade we have watched the inevitable and predictable rise in slaughtered cattle, as bTB has spread, unchallenged, through an increasing badger population. Until now.

But as well as delaying reactor removal , churning out - or not - paperwork, Defra's new toy, a computer system known as SAM, appears to have trouble adding up.

The monthly tally of tested slaughtered cattle, herds under restriction and confirmed outbreaks of (cattle) bTB can be viewed on Defra's website on this link. But the stats appear stuck at August 2011, with the following information note:

As previously announced, the TB in cattle statistics for September 2011 onwards are being produced from AHVLA’s new IT system. Unfortunately we are not yet in a position to publish these statistics as there are still some issues to check and resolve. Defra statisticians and AHVLA are working together to resolve these issues and to minimise any delay. As soon as this work has been completed we will publish statistics for September 2011 onwards.

Good old SAM.

Cull areas announced

Today the North Devon edition of the Western Morning News announced the preferred sites of the two pilot badger culls. From the report...:

One of the pilot areas will be on Exmoor and the other around Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, according to industry sources.

But there will not be a pilot cull in Devon – a major bovine TB hotspot county and widely expected to be the location of one of the two – because it was difficult to get a sufficient number of farmers to sign up in the individual areas.

An area of North Devon, however, is one of two reserve areas for a trial, if either Exmoor or Tewkesbury drop out.

In another part of this report, the privacy and security part of this project is again aired:

Natural England, the Government agency that will be handling the culls, will hold local consultations about the cull in the areas before they go ahead – so there is scant chance that the details about where and when will be a secret.

Now in his speech at the Oxford Conference which we touched on in this posting, Defra minister Jim Paice indicated that such actions were 'required by law'. By which law, or under what statute he did not explain, but cetainly when the Minstry's State Veterinary Service held the license, issued under the same part of the same Act, no such advance warning was given. In fact quite the opposite.

But then you can't believe everything you read in the press - this same article in WMN gives the cull area size as 30 sq km which could be a misunderstanding, a misprint or just plain mischief.

The pennies start to drop.

As 2012 dawns, farmers and their representatives begin to grapple with the nitty gritty of the 'cull plan' concocted on their behalf by Natural England.
This is the operating protocol to which we referred in the previous posting as :

the most complicated, divisive strategy imaginable ...

... but one for which farmers must bear the undefined cost and clearly defined publicity. It appears from the press this week, that questions which we asked at the time of NE's publication are now surfacing.
A bit late, but there are a lot of pages.

Farmers Guardian published a long piece on the 3rd January, with the strap line 'Badger cull ball now firmly in the farmers' court'. Or put another way, 'This is your badger cull, this is how it's going to operate, now get on with it - if you can. The article defines the key concerns of farmers, which are and always have been - the timing, the cost and their security.

Timing looks as if the two pilots will be late autumn this year (post Olympic fervour) so another year bites the dust, as do several thousand more cattle.

Costs we have explored several times. Jim Paice is sticking with his £1.4 million + 25% contingency fund up front for each 150 sq km patch. That equates to £920 per badger. But the NFU have done their own fag-packet calculations and arrived at around £20. Until that gap closes, then we agree with Anthony Gibson's comments (made before he was hoovered back into the NFU fold) and aired in the posting below.

Unless these proposals are radically altered in the consultation process – particularly in terms of reducing the financial and other risks to participants – I find it hard to envisage a badger-culling licence ever being issued.

Quite so. But then licenses were never meant to be issued under these proposals and the costs relate to the operating protocol set out by NE and to which the 'industry' apparently agreed.

The security question is vital with the farming industry now at complete loggerheads with NE's proposals. FG reports that as far as the farming organisations go:

The names of farmers, landowners and contractors involved in the culling areas will not be made public. Neither will the exact timing of the culling operations.

Natural England’s guidance, however, states it should ‘give the public an opportunity to comment on the licence applications’. This has become a key area of debate between the licensing agency and industry, which is intent on preserving the anonymity of those involved .

And that is the problem. In their proposals, NE even go so far as to describe a '28 day consultation period with maps posted on parish notice boards'. That is what farmers are being asked to sign up to. And this was hammered home by Jim Paice at the Oxford Farming Conference this week.
Mr. Paice reminded delegates that:

Natural England is required by law in each area to consult the public. We are in discussion with them about how precise the boundaries on those maps need to be,” he said.
“But I have to say as a countryman myself that once these trials are underway, the grapevines will work and I don’t think it will be possible to keep it secret.
“I am afraid farmers will have to take that into consideration when they decide whether to sign up. I don’t think there is anything more we can do in reality,” he told journalists, adding that he hopes this does not deter farmers from signing up.

If nothing else about this half cocked load of bureaucracy, that one paragraph is enough reason to hand control of a serious communicable zoonosis back to Animal Health, where it belongs. That organisation (or its predecessor, the State Veterinary Service) always held a general license and applied it under Section 10 of the Protection of Badgers Act when and if it was deemed necessary. Control of TB has no place in NE's portfolio. And it's no use at this late stage, the great and the good throwing a hissy fit when at last they are reading the small print of that which they've already agreed in principle. Or thinking they can change it.

This is bureaucracy gone mad, said NBA TB committee chairman Bill Harper. “Our concern is the maps used in the consultation will be too precise. We want them to be fairly general.”

and the NFU's John Royle added that:

the NFU was still trying to persuade the agency ‘not to describe the areas involved exactly’.

How exactly you do not describe areas, which by the terms of the NE license have to be displayed for a 28 day public consultation ? But as Jim Paice said at the Oxford Conference:

“I am afraid farmers will have to take that into consideration when they decide whether to sign up. I don’t think there is anything more we can do in reality,” he told journalists, adding that he hopes this does not deter farmers from signing up.

Really? You could have fooled us.

Quotes of the year

As 2011 draws to a close, several people have had their say about badgers, TB the proposed cull and much more. Below are a few snippets.

From Jeremy Clarkson in the The Sun [sorry, no online link] a comment on the cost of Jim Paice's proposed cull, using a protocol described by Natural England. While he admits it is 'safer' not to get bogged down on rights or wrongs of culling badgers, Mr. Clarkson explains that he doesn't understand the numbers being bandied about...

" It's been suggested that the cost of culling 100,000 badgers over the next eight years will be £92m. That works out at £920 per badger. I'm sorry but what are they going to use? Golden bullet? Hellfire missiles? Apache gunships? That's the trouble with modern government. It trots out these big numbers without ever pausing for rational thought".

You get to that figure quite easily on the 150 sq km blocks as well Mr. Clarkson. Divide Mr. Paice's £1.38m per patch by Natural England's maximum number of badgers culled of 1500 - and bingo. That £920 pops up again. But if only 1000 (NE's lower figure) are culled, the per head cost rises to £1,380. The NFU are quoting a few £ per head at meetings to drum up support - but the distance between the two is enormous and deserves further exploration.

Still on the subject of cost, in The Daily Wail last Saturday was a comment on the cost of moving a badger sett. It was pointed out that the animal in question could dig another home quite quickly and the quoted figure of £180,000 would fund the creature a council flat. Quite so.

When the proposals outlined by Natural England were published in August, we drew your attention to the main document and its many annexes in this post. Later that week, former SW regional director of the NFU, Anthony Gibson published his overview of the proposals in the Western Morning News. With a strapline "Badger cull rules must change to be workable," Mr. Gibson commented :

It is hard to say whether it is the cost of what is proposed, or the regulatory burden which it will involve, which evokes the greater degree of concern. But if you put one together with the other, it will be a very brave and very determined group of farmers which signs a "TB Management Agreement" with Natural England.

The bureaucracy associated with such agreements will be formidable, if anything like the measures proposed in the consultation are finally agreed. I don't have the space to go into any great detail, but you will find it all at www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2011/07/19/bovine-tb/ which should be required reading – including the annexes – for anyone planning to get involved.

In this piece, Anthony went on to say that:

Unless these proposals are radically altered in the consultation process – particularly in terms of reducing the financial and other risks to participants – I find it hard to envisage a badger-culling licence ever being issued.

and he concluded

The only consolations I can offer are, first, that the principle of a badger cull has been conceded, and that could be crucial to TB control when sanity is restored; and second, that a bad cull could very easily be worse in all sorts of ways than no cull at all.

So have the costs been reduced? Bureaucracy loosened or protocol simplified? We don't think so, but others are now starting to question whether this is yet another 'designed to fail' exercise.

In Farmers Guardian last week, Jim Paice explained why a cull was necessary.

“The science is not simple. But scientists agree that, if culling is conducted in line with the strict criteria identified through the randomised badger culling trial, we can expect it to reduce TB in cattle over a 150 sq km area, plus a 2 km surrounding ring, by an average of 16% over nine years, relative to a similar unculled area. That was based on trapping and shooting. Our judgement is that farmers can be trusted to deliver a similar result by controlled shooting

Our judgement is that Animal Health have abandoned their responsibility on this issue, preferring to dumb down overspill, test cattle to distraction yet still hang on to the coat tails of the worst bit of 'science' we have had the misfortune to be caught up in.

Predictably the Badger Trust, RSPCA and assorted followers are frothing at the mouth, with the Humane Society launching a broadside at the Bern convention on the following grounds :

The Government claims a badger slaughter will prevent livestock damage by reducing the spread of bTB. However, the proportion of cases of bTB in cattle attributable to badgers is very small and the Government itself admits that the slaughter is likely only to achieve a 12-16 per cent reduction in bovine TB cases in cattle after 9 years.
The Government has given insufficient consideration to alternative non-lethal solutions including cattle movement/testing controls and the development of vaccines for badgers and cattle. The Convention should not allow a slaughter of badgers in preference to alternative options such as stricter cattle movement controls, which have a potentially greater chance of reducing the spread of bTB, solely because it is more convenient for farmers.

Amazing how they talk of a 'massacre' of tuberculous badgers, but imply 'damage' to cattle and 'inconvenience' to farmers? Can't really get our collective heads around that one.

We do however see a distinct stumbling block in that mathematically modelled 12 - 16 per cent alleged benefit. It is farcical and Defra know it. Thornbury achieved 100 percent and even Professor Krebbs when he formulated his original protocol for the RBCT (before it became politicised ) had this to say about past culling strategies and their results : (p126)

7.8.3 The gassing and clean ring strategies, in effect, eliminated or severely reduced badger populations from an area and appear to have had the effect of reducing or eliminating TB in local cattle populations. The effect lasted for many years after the cessation of culling, but eventually TB returned.

7.8.4 The interim strategy, introduced following the Dunnet report, is not likely to be effective in reducing badger-related incidence of TB in cattle for the following reasons:

i) The policy involves removing badgers from a limited area (the reactor land or the entire farm suffering the herd breakdown if the former cannot be identified) ; but social groups of badgers may occupy several setts covering more than one farm.

(ii) Partial removal of groups could exacerbate the spread of TB by peturbation of the social structure and increased movement of badgers.

(iii) There is no attempt to prevent recolonisation by badgers of potentially infected setts; even if infectivety in the setts is not a problem, immigrant badgers may bring new infection.

In addition, the current operation of the interim strategy involves a delay (27 weeks in 1995) to the start of the removal. The average period from the herd breakdown to the completion of the removal was 41 weeks in 1995.

7.8.5 In common with the clean ring strategy and the live test trial, the effectiveness of the interim strategy is further undermined by the failure to remove lactating sows which may also be infected. We recognise that culling lactating sows has a welfare cost in terms of cubs left in setts, but this needs to be balanced against wider animal health and welfare considerations for both cattle and badgers.

All the great and the good who pontificate from a distance on the insidious spread of this disease, and the many who glean employment from it, know what Krebbs knew in 1996 and what his predecessors Professors Dunnet and Zucherman knew.

They knew it then, they know it now and yet they will do nothing to address the situation at all except cook up the most complicated divisive strategy imaginable - and expect farmers to carry the cost.

A Happy New Year.

After the Olympics...

.. our Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is 'minded' to allow two pilot badger culls to go ahead, each lasting 6 weeks, in the autumn of 2012. The Defra statement can be viewed here (pdf) - note section 5 for the cull protocol which participating farmers will have to abide by.

More on the official press release, from Farmers Weekly, Farmers Guardian and the Western Morning News.

We'll revisit this later in the week, as the dust settles around various reactions.

1, 2, 3, 4 ... Brocks.

Still in the spirit of our Happy Brocklemas posting below we see from the Defra website that dear old FERA (Food Food and Environment Research Agency (UK)) have a received an early Christmas present in the form of a new project to keep them in the manner to which they have become accustomed handbags for the next couple of years.

Known as SE 3129, an estimated £870,984 will be spent enabling FERA to count badgers in 1700 x 1 km squares. They explain:

"Obtaining an up-to-date estimate of the current size of the badger population will help inform policy on badgers and will assist the UK in addressing its obligations under the Bern Convention. The last National Badger Survey of Great Britain was completed in 1997 and was a follow-up to the original survey carried out in the mid 1980s. The 1990s survey revealed that badger numbers had increased substantially in the intervening decade."

Although the Defra report appears somewhat reluctant to put a figure on that increase, members of the Mammal Society who carried out that survey revealed an increase in population of 77 percent in the decade to 1997. (Ref: "Changes in the British badger population, 1988 to 1997" (1997). G. Wilson, S. Harris and G. McLaren. People's Trust for Endangered Species (ISBN 1 85580 018 7))

The objective of the new study will be:

1. To conduct a repeat field survey of badger setts in approximately 1700 1km squares that were surveyed in the 1980s and 90s
2. To produce estimates of the number of badger social groups in 2011-2013
3. To assess change in the number of social groups since the 1980s and the 1990s, if any
4. To produce estimates of the badger population of England and Wales, and of the UK.
5. To build and make accessible a GIS for the estimation of badger populations at a regional scale

The Project will run from 2011 - 2013 with taxpayers coughing up £870,984 to fund it. Most of us trying to farm cattle, would say there are too many badgers (and thus a paucity of hedgehogs and ground nesting birds) and suggest that unless the badgers are sitting on each others' shoulders, density of the 1700 original 1 km squares may be similar, but their occupants are likely to have spread out a tad ?

And keeping within the spirit of Christmas Brocklemas, we wonder, will this poor old chap be counted ?

Happy Brocklemas

Isn't he a cutey? And now we can reveal that you are able to buy bags of - Badger Food on which to feed him.
Searching amongst the shelves of a local pet superstore on a Saturday morning is not for the faint hearted, but occasionally it turns up something which may be a shock to some - particularly cattle farmers south / south west of Lancashire.
But such goodies would be viewed with delight by others of the Bill Oddie fraternity.


A quick 'google' turned up two brands of badger bait food. One is a formed biscuit of meat concentrate, oils and other stuff which should, say the instructions, be left out at dusk. On this link it was also marked 'out of stock', which is somewhat depressing.
The other one which we found was a coarse peanut based mix
which has secret ingredient, and comes in packs up to 52kg. And that's an awful lot of badger food.

In this instance and as it's Christmas, we won't mention the ethical arguments of encouraging an already top heavy badger population to increase by artificial supplementary feeding, purely for public gratification. And we will ignore the very real danger of badgers encouraged to feed up close and personal, bringing a highly infectious zoonosis into your front garden, and thus directly to your cat, dog or child.

From our parliamentary questions, we are already quite well aware of Defra's attitude to the translocation of badgers, sick, mended or disease status unknown and thus would presume that this intransigence extends to artificial feeding too.

The answers to our Questions confirmed that :

"as native species, there are no specific restrictions under current law regulating where badgers can be released once they have recovered". [ 6th Jan 2004: Col 249W 144446]

Although the use of the old Brock test (which boasts just 47 percent sensitivity) is encouraged and is mandatory if a license is applied for, relocations undertaken by so called 'animal hospitals' have more leeway and our Question revealed that:

" testing guidelines are not mandatory, but are set down in a voluntary code of practise". 31th Jan 2004: col 543W [ 1500609]

And finally on this thorny subject of these 'rescues', answers to our Questions confirmed that :

"this voluntary protocol was not devised or approved by Defra". 6th Feb 2004; Col 1109W [150583]".

So, you may release him anywhere at all. Your place or mine? Nobody really cares. And he now has a purpose built feed to sustain him too. But the result of this crazy over protection of a species in which Defra state "Tuberculosis is endemic" is no less distressing for old Brock himself. It may be called 'conservation' but under no circumstrances can it be deemed 'welfare'.

The badger is a victim of his protector's success.

Happy Brocklemas.

More chaos

.. but don't mention that computer.

Last week, Farmers Weekly reported again on the slow down with data input to Defra's new computer system, and its consequences both to farmers, staff and taxpayers. Warmwell reports :

Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency's system has broken down and vital paperwork approving the movement of cattle has not been sent. Although applications for export health certificates are now being processed and consignments of calves in low TB incidence areas being able to move, calf exports from high TB incidence regions are not being processed. The AHVLA is an executive agency of DEFRA.

As cattle, including TB reactors, stack up farms while a couple of stiff fingers type test charts in, one laborious line at a time, AHVLA explain that they have "drafted extra staff in to input data manually". It would be churlish of us to point out that it may have helped if they had not sacked experienced admin staff to save on pensions, replacing them with untrained agency staff with little knowledge of veterinary terminology and even less interest. It would also have helped if the much vaunted SAM system could be directly accessed by LVI vets, instead of the 'manual input' referred to above. And it would have been really good if the original helpline number for vets using the system had connected with AHVLA, instead of a solicitor's office in Pall Mall.

Earlier reports on SAM from Farmers Weekly and Western Morning News are on these links. And we offer another glimpse at WMN's most excellent Comment which describes the reply from AHVLA to newspaper's point of frantic concerns of farmers snarled up in this unholy mess as :

"....anodyne and jargon-spattered response from the department, which talks about 'new functionality' [ snip] and seeks to paper over cracks rather than come clean about its shortcomings."

Farmers, AHVLA staff and taxpayers deserve better.

Progress? ...

.. or a very un-holy alliance?
Time will tell, but news last week of a joint initiative between the NFU and the Badger Trust was announced.

NFU chief farm policy adviser John Royle and Badger Trust director Simon Boulter have agreed a joint project in which the badgers will be vaccinated on two farms owned by NFU members. In addition, the Badger Trust has identified five other landowners around the UK wishing to vaccinate badgers and is working independently with them as part of the initial trial project.

Vaccination on all seven farms started in October after surveys were carried out to identify active badger setts and licences have been granted by Natural England. The vaccination project will run until the end of November 2011 and resume in May 2012

And then what?
Badgers have been vaccinated on seven farms, and this helps how?
What is the aim here?

Are we looking at NFU saying it's too expensive, cumbersome and won't work and actually we weren't really planning to do it as part of Option 6 of any badger cull?
And conversely, Badger Trust saying no it's not and yes you must?

In Parliamentary questions last week, Jim Paice seems to sticking to his original £1.4 million price tag on each 350 sq km cull area and much of that cost was ring vaccination - however much his own department knows that the PR surrounding last autumn's mishmash of 'scientific' trials on vaccinating wild badgers was a huge con. And the NFU are said to have told its members vaccination is too costly, impractical and they can ignore it.

But we digress.

We are a cynical lot at blogger HQ and do not believe for one moment that the NFU and Badger Trust, holding hands with Defra / FERA and Natural England actually want to break the polemic log jam or stop the beneficial gravy train of bTB. However the members of both the alliance members do want action - but from different directions.

So, who is paying for this project? NFU members? Badger Trust? Defra? or could it be the first 'cost sharing' exercise via the proposed Cost and Responsibility levy?
FERA already know the cost of vaccinating badgers from several previous forays. And most importantly, they knew the TB status of the farm's cattle (if indeed there were any cattle on the land) at the start of the project. How will success or failure be calculated in this short time scale? Or is this merely the practicalities of vaccination which are being considered - again? Are the badgers in question screened for TB ahead of their annual jab (or peanut fest) as they were in previous 'trials'? If you remember this excluded all but 262 of that headline grabbing 844. The remainder showing TB positive to at least one of three tests.

And finally, what chance of any discussion on a selective cull going ahead while this latest prevarication project is in progress, or being digested?

The press release indicates that:

It is hoped that the two programmes, although small in scale, will help to identify whether the injectable vaccination of badgers is practical and cost effective.

... with, as we have pointed out, one organisation possibly trying to prove the opposite of it's partner?

Over years, the NFU and Badger Trust have repeatedly clashed on the relative merits of badger culling and badger vaccination as approaches to controlling bTB in wildlife and cattle. John Royle said:

“We are pleased that the NFU and the Badger Trust have successfully liaised to facilitate this joint project, sharing equipment and resources as necessary, despite having differing views on the degree to which badgers are implicated in the transmission of bovine Tuberculosis.”

Editor's note: As 99 percent of biosecurity advice involves keeping badgers away from cattle, that 'implication' is somewhat outdated we think.

The Government is expected to make a final announcement before Christmas on whether to give the go ahead to two proposed pilot badger culls next year.

And we confidently predict that the NFU's latest stroll down the corridors of power will have a disproportionate effect on its members ability to deal with the source of bTB in their cattle herds.

Update
Farmers Weekly report today that a decision on any pilot culls is likely before Christmas. In the same report,
police officers warn of increased problems with 'activists' should any cull go ahead which may impact on the policing of the 2012 Olympics.

Success v Failure

New Zealand has produced a combined report of its progress in eradicating bTB. The documents report good progress in what they describe as 'an exceptional year':

"It gives me great pleasure to report on what has been an exceptional year for protecting the country from bovine tuberculosis (TB)," said Mr McCook.

The drop in infected herd numbers to around 80 in 2010/11 is the lowest recorded total since the TB control programme was conceived.

We covered their progress last in 2009, in this posting. And Christiane Glossop, in a paper written for the NZ Animal Health Board, also congratulated them on such stunning progress.

"We slaughtered 12,000 cattle infected with tuberculosis in Wales last year. In some areas of Wales, the infection rates are as high as 15%.

In contrast, New Zealand has an infection rate of 0.35% and it’s going down. You have nearly wiped this disease out through rigorous pursuit of pest management, stock movement controls and robust government policies built on co-operation between farmers, local councils and government."

So how are we getting on in GB? The latest figures produced by our Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA to July 2011 show a somewhat different trend.
Herds under TB restriction in the seven months to July, are UP and number almost 8 percent of our cattle herds, with 18 per cent of the West region's herds caught up in restructuins.
New herd breakdowns are UP by 5.4 per cent on the figure for 2010.
And cattle slaughtered fed into Defra's mincing machine, are UP by 6.1 percent on last year.

So what are New Zealand doing differently. That was a rhetorical question by the way, but they describe their strategy thus:

Introduction to the revised National Pest Management Strategy
In September 2009, the AHB presented a proposal to Agriculture and Forestry Minister David Carter to amend the National Bovine Tuberculosis (TB) Pest Management Strategy. The strategy amendment was duly approved and the revised strategy came into effect on 1 July 2011. This strategy will guide the TB control programme through to 2026, subject to five yearly reviews.

Over the next 15 years, the strategy aims to achieve the following primary objectives. These include:

The eradication of TB from wild animals over at least 2.5 million hectares of Vector Risk Area (VRA), including two extensive forest areas representing relatively difficult operational terrain from which to eradicate the disease
Continued freedom from infection in wild animals (vectors) in existing Vector Free Areas (VFAs) and areas where eradication is considered to have been achieved
A secondary objective is to maintain the national infected herd period prevalence level (the number of herds with TB during a period of time) below 0.4 per cent during the term of the strategy. The amended strategy gives priority to wildlife TB eradication and allows the AHB to prioritise operations and resource allocation for this purpose.

The TB control programme has made significant gains over the past decade, especially in reducing the number of infected cattle and deer herds. However, TB-infected possums continue to be a source of livestock infection across some 10 million hectares of New Zealand’s TB Vector Risk Area. The revised strategy sets out to address this underlying problem by aiming to eradicate TB from possum populations in selected areas. These areas make up 25 per cent, or 2.5 million hectares, of the total area of New Zealand known to contain infected wild animals. Achieving this objective will also confirm that TB can be eradicated from possums and other wild animals across large forest tracts where possum control is most challenging.

Eradicating TB from the possum population across one quarter of the total area known to be at risk from TB-infected wild animals would also from a basis for extending the eradication approach to further large areas of New Zealand.

The revised strategy will continue to protect the reputation and value of New Zealand’s dairy, beef and deer exports by ensuring infected herd numbers remain below a 0.4 per cent period prevalence. To achieve the objectives of the revised strategy, the AHB will vigorously pursue improvements in the cost-effectiveness of possum control. Herd testing and movement control policies will also be adjusted to reduce the risk of herd-to-herd TB transmission and, over time, reduce the need for herd TB testing in areas of low disease risk.

With a TB incidence of below 0.4 percent, NZ is intending to eradicate the disease risk from their wildlife reservoir, from 2.5 million hectares. 25 per cent of the total area of NZ.

And us? With a TB incidence of almost 8 percent in the first half of 2011, Defra is 'mindful' of setting up a couple of pilot 150 sq km plots for a four year badger culling 'trial'. But using a published operating protocol which should guarantee the outcome of this plan is similar to that of its previous exercise in prevarication, the RBCT Badger Dispersal Trial.

These are outrageous figures by any standards. This country, its cattle, badgers and all the overspill victims of bTB deserve better. Much better.

Earthmovers

The Daily Mail reports that tunnelling badgers have caused huge problems to the safety of school buildings in Somerset. Click link for full story.

A primary school is under threat of collapse after badgers tunnelled underneath it and shifted 7.5 tonnes of soil. The school, which teaches 420 pupils, has been blighted by the badgers - leaving deep gaps in the foundations underneath two main classrooms. Parents and governors now fear buildings could cave in at Ashcombe Primary School, Western-Super-Mare, Somerset.

A spokesman person explained:

Our major concern is the fact that badgers have built or excavated under one of the buildings, which contains two classrooms. "These are elderly pre-fabricated buildings which need constant repair. The excavations by the badgers will have had some effect on the foundations.

"We worry that the buildings will collapse into the holes that have been left.

"Another problem is that the animals have brought their kill under the buildings, which of course we can't get to, so they decompose. All you can do is open the windows" ......

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Read more of the antics of these weapons of mass destruction in this 2004 posting. We reported increases in tuberculosis in this posting and the predictable consequences for anyone getting up close and personal with diseased badgers, here.

The comments to this story are depressingly predictable. Forget the enormous damage to property and definitely air brush the risk to persons of discarded bedding, latrines or urine. You know, all those areas we farmers are supposed to fence off to protect our cattle from tuberculosis? Everybody just lurves badgers.... from a very safe distance which usually involves four walls and a settee.

Edit. The boss has sent his favourite pic of the appropriate 'earthmover' to illustrate this post. We are happy to oblige. 7.5 tonnes is a lot, after all.