It was Owen Paterson's Parliamentary Questions on bTB and more importantly, their answers, which form the basis of this site. When he was Shadow Minister, the number of cattle herds having TB problems in Great Britain was 5.6 per cent, a figure which shocked him. Last year that total had almost doubled to10.07 percent. The number of cattle slaughtered in GB during 2004, (the year Owen asked the PQs ) was 23,000. Last year Defra sent 34,617 to their premature deaths. The spillover into other species, especially camelids, had just started in 2004 and Defra recorded 6 herds with at least 1 infected animal 1999-2004. We will post again on their contortionist gymnastics to avoid the question,' how many alpacas have you killed today?' But infected herds of camelids, (not individual deaths) we are told, now stands at 60.
A full biography of Owen Paterson is here from Alistair Driver at Farmers Guardian.
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