"nothing is being done to eradicate the spread

...of bTb from wildlife to cattle".

We are grateful to the ever vigilant www.warmwell.com for the following piece;

Shropshire dairy farmers Stuart and Jenny Jones, describe their dismay and frustration, after 51 years clear of bTb, to find the scourge has caught up with their closed herd. "While we do everything to minimise the risk on our farm from cattle-to-cattle contamination, nothing is being done to eradicate the spread from wildlife to cattle.."


Yesterday's STACKYARD article describes the harrowing round of testing; stressed cattle, abortions, and more slaughtering. And warmwell has received an email from yet another closed herd farm: "....We've just gone down with TB which we are disputing after 2 inconclusives followed by a positive blood test. ... If we do turn out to have TB then this will be yet another case of a closed herd coming into contact with badgers." The Stackyard article emphasises the suffering incurred by the whole herd -and by the badgers themselves.
(Harrowing pictures not for the faint hearted, also show the real misery of TB in badgers.)


Warmwell continues;
"On the subject of recent badger vaccine trials, we are left once again wondering why - if the trials are successful and the vaccine found to be safe and effective - it has to "take at least 5 years before the vaccine could be administered to the general badger population outside the lab through microcapsules mixed with peanuts." Why so long when the situation is so desperate? (More on warmwell's bovine TB page)

Meanwhile, the voices raised from justifiably angry farmers for the death of the bullock Shambo might be more usefully raised in demands for a humane UK animal health policy - one that stops dragging its feet over available vaccination and, in the case of TB, the accurate testing of badger setts with PCR so that a solution need not involve the random killing of healthy animals".