We are not surprised

 

The farming press have reported this week that cattle slaughtered in England have dropped by 20 per cent. Similar drops have been reported in Wales and Scotland.

Farmers Guardian took the front page slot with the headline addressed to the new PM, 'Call for a Rethink on Badger cull' and long piece including new Defra stats, from June 2021 - July 2022.

The push follows the publication of new Defra figures which reveal between July 2021 and June 2022, a total of 24,398 animals have been slaughtered in England, a drop of 20 per cent, while in Wales the number was 9,713, a decrease of 16 per cent. 

 

The phrase, previously parroted by the now culled Secretary of state, George Eustice MP was sold as 'We can't keep culling badgers indefinitely' : his political masters telling him that culling tuberculous badgers could and should be replaced by vaccinations. Farmers Guardian piece continues:

The recent phase out of badger culling in England was widely reported to have been introduced after a personal intervention from former PM Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie. 

 But this mantra goes beyond the fragrant Carrie and the then PM, her bed mate, Boris. Defra was infiltrated by a claque of badgerists, led by a Goldsmith, who having lost his seat as an MP was parachuted into position at Defra. And not to count beavers or stack paper clips. Zac Goldsmith has form, being part of the Bow group, which as far back as 2012 was proposing vaccinating badgers as opposed to any sort of cull for a highly infectious, zoonotic disease. Except sentinel tested cattle of course.

Also involved in the plan was former minister at Defra, Theresa Villiers. All were members of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation    together with Johnson's father (Stanley) and few more well placed movers and shakers, happily dismantling common sense in general and livestock farming in particular. 

Number 22 of 30 on this published CAWF wish list read as follows:

22. Introduce a national badger vaccination scheme instead of badger culling. End the culling of a protected species which scientists have urged makes no meaningful contribution to the control of Bovine TB in cattle.

Now our readers will remember no doubt the utterings of 'scientists' who uttered those words. And they may also remember our 2007 posting which gave the context of John Bourne's boast to the EFRA committee, of the political steer his group had received to trash a supposedly independent 'trial'.

Not that any such trial was ever needed, as many badger clearances in the years following the TB eradication sweeps of the mid 1960s had all given similar results, with Thornbury, Glos the most successful. We asked why this should be. And the PQ written answer was unequivocal.

 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] 

 

So as the new team at Defra take on the 'green blob' we wish them well. They would also be advised to research badger vaccination - thoroughly. As we have done. This posting from 2014 gives a fair overview. And please do not forget that dead cat.

(Cartoon originally shown with permission of the late Ken Wignall, after publication in Farmers Guardian)

Our industry deserves far better than the creative inertia which has battered it for the last several decades.