Some constituents asked me to attend the badger culling debate in Westminster Hall yesterday. I went to hear the Opposition Spokeswoman and the Minister. I put to the Minister the need to work with farmers to improve bio security on farms, so there is less contact between badgers and cattle. The Minister agreed and said they were working on this as part of a package of measures to stop the spread of TB.
No vote was taken, as is customary in Westminster Hall debates.
November 5, 2014
Sir,
One point that hasn’t really been touched upon, yet I believe should be made is about a couple of rather unusual biological adaptations that badgers have. The first is of delayed embryo implantation, and the second is of the ability of female badgers to come into season at any time of the year. These combine to suggest that badgers are adapted to live at extremely low population densities; in this normal state a female would come into heat as soon as she smelled a male in the general area, which might be any time of year.
Cubs would be born at the normal time, as the embryos would not start to develop until the correct time. This adaptive trait is in marked difference to the colonial habits of British badgers, but there is strong evidence that they really aren’t adapted to group living.
The point I am making here is this: heavy culling of badger populations isn’t going to wipe them out; they’re adapted to survive this.
Culling 80% of the population in an infected zone will not exterminate this population as it might a more normal species, so a campaign of gassing of all setts in the vicinity of bTB infected cattle isn’t going to result in local extinction of badgers, but merely control of the disease-spreading aspects of their biology.
November 7, 2014
Personally I am glad this is the case. I am fed up with every specie of wildlife in this country being persecuted at the moment for the convenience of the human population and sometimes the importance of making money is coming before the protection of these species as in the current status of affairs regarding Golden Eagle, raptors, bats, birds, badgers, otters, red squirrels, water voles etc etc. All these species are SUPPOSED to have European protection as they all come under protected species. Protected my a—s! Wind farm developers bring out a desk study and a very limited site study of how many species there are in an area and in nearly every case they find no numbers of importance!!! Ask the locals and they will tell you differently. In Scotland recently more Golden Eagles and bird of prey have been killed by wind farms than by poisoning or shooting. the numbers being killed are covered up because up to date data is not available and most wind farms do not have anyone officially taking data. It is all covered up and I suspect the numbers are far more than we realise. Only last week a report by the RSPB (who support wind farms) revealed that Bewick Swans are at risk and many have been killed by wind turbines on their journeys. How many more bats and birds are killed that we don’t know about? It seems that nothing must get in the way of making money in the UK at the moment. Are we intent on destroying all of our much loved animals when they are supposed to be protected by us? I despair of this country at the moment and the so called charities etc ed