Will you sign this petition to stop the culling of our Badgers.

[ladybirder]

I have just watched Brian May talking about Team Badger on BBC1 and he is asking for people to sign it. All the information is here.
http://www.teambadger.org/
Thank you.

[ladybirder]

Yes tambo, I heard the use of vaccination pellets left by the setts being advocated today. No guns - good for you.
Gness, a lot of truth in what you say, the bottom line is always money.
Thank you fred and all the rest who have signed this evening. Brilliant, I didn't expect so many signatures. I hope we get enough to force a change and it's great that so many high profile conservationists have banded together to try to bring that about. Though Kate Humble's name seems to be missing unless I am mistaken. Again, thank you, thank you, and thank you JohnnyBoy12 for finally signing:-)

[gness]

You're welcome Ladybirder. The sett I watch will be safe but the warden I was chatting to gave some interesting insight into why the preference is to shoot rather than vaccinate. Thrill of the kill isn't far down the list, sadly.

[ladybirder]

Thrill of the kill isn't far down the list, sadly.

That is truly sickening gness, and very depressing.

[gness]

It is sickening Lady but just think....would anyone normal want to shoot a badger in the head? Oh, they have said they will shoot in the head to avoid unnecessary suffering. That's good of them isn't it?
Don't suppose they'll have the nerve to say exactly when and where but I'm sure we'll find out.

[vulcan]

signed

[ttfn]

Well I thought I was a good sport to sign the petition ;)
http://www.theanswerb.../Question1167959.html

The cull was subject to a phone-in on my local BBC radio station this morning. Some poor woman was dimented because a badger keeps entering her house through the cat flap :( However, she wouldn't support the cull either. Nor would local farmers.

I really hope the petition gathers many signatures.

[ladybirder]

Thank you vulcan. X

Gness the rescue centres are already on standby ready to pick up injured badgers. That is of course if they get to them before they crawl back into their setts to die. I hope there are protesters and saboteurs crawling all over the chosen cull sites. I'm going to bed now but in the morning I shall find out my nearest badger rescue place and make a donation.
Night all, don't let my absence stop you from signing:-) XXX

[gness]

Ttfn....you're a star!

Lady....lots of plans for protest and sabotage in place.

[ttfn]

Twinkle, twinkle - that's me, Gness ;) Brock returned last night - he is being renamed as JCB ...

One thing that has always puzzled me about badgers is the expression "rough as a badger's arse" - yet the finest shaving brushes are made with badgers' hair - life is strange, indeed.

[gness]

The other thing that surprised me Ttfn was how tiny a badger is.

[queenofmean]

job done

[ladybirder]

ttfn, apparently the very best shaving brushes are made from the fine under-belly hair of the badger, usually from China.
Thought you'd like to know that:-)

[DTCwordfan]

Badgers are tiny - not around here! They are pretty substantial beasts and not worth running into, as farmers have done when they see them on the road.

FYI - They grow to around 35 inches (89 cm) in length including tail. They weigh around 20–24 pounds (9.1–11 kg) on average, with some badgers weighing in at around 40 pounds (18kg).

The money involved would be better invested in (i) understanding the precise means of conveyance between badgers and cows of bovine TB and from that, means of control can be better targeted and the concentrations needed (ii) understanding badger numbers and demographics, plus migration as on both sides of the arguments, the logic falls down when one doesn't understand something as basic as how many there are to set the 70% target level - and (iii) how is that number arrived at to.

However whilst there is a lot of emotion in this subject and perhaps likely to intensify even into agri-terrorism shortly, there are strong feelings in the Agriculture Industry as well and perhaps, perhaps, here we have yet one more set of poorly informed people seeing farmers as the bete-noir, May being a bit of a shyte stirrer over this and cutting across work going on behind scenes to get a methodology in place across the country.

This is a strong feeling around here with farmers (chats in the local last night for example), particularly in Dairy, which is being battered on other sides to and I do think that we need to better understand and appreciate their positions - and hence the need for mediators in all this to seek out the practical aspects and build consensus around them.

Two basic questions - Ok stop the shooting in favour of vaccination, but then hw do you know that you have vaccinated 70% of the badger population? And, following on from that, in what time period as they reckon it can not be done even in four years....and there is a strong view that the early vaccination will have been completely undermined by new setts coming through.

In short, there are two very strong sides to this debate and more is needed to better understand the issues and ABers too ought to be more cognisant before signing on "emotion" as that is what seems to be happening.

[flip_flop]

Quite, DTcrosswordfan.

I strongly suspect if Badgers weren't so pretty, and instead bore more than a striking resemblance to rats, there wouldn't be quite so many people willing to sign the petition.

[wolf63]

I have no love of badgers but the actual animal is not important. As humans we are supposed to be intelligent beings. If killing is our solution to many problems it doesn't really bode well in our ability to keep the planet going and finding world peace.

[DTCwordfan]

Just to be clear, I do not support the cull but I am not signing the petition - I could sit here and re-write the "Coalition" text and reverse position it in terms of the culling/majority of farmers position....it wouldn't take much to do and sound equally as convincing.

If there was a petition that argued for more knowledge to be generated to drive the quest to find a more solid and effective (i.e. deliverance, results, side-effects and costs) solution to the issue, then I would sign that.

[gness]

DT and Flip flop. Well that's a right insult to my intelligence. I've signed this petition because I'm being emotional about a "pretty" animal? I'm not cognisant?
I 've done no research? Thank you.

[ttfn]

Well said, wolf.

I see more roadkill badgers than any other single animal on my regular trip to Big Sis'. I agree with DT on their size - most of them that end up as carrion appear to be fully grown.

lb - I remember saving up my pocket money to buy my dad such a fine shaving brush - a life time away, now.

[ttfn]

"Scientists agree that if culling is conducted in line with the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), we would expect it to reduce TB in cattle over a 150 square kilometre area, plus a 2 km surrounding ring, by an average of 16 per cent over nine years when compared to similar unculled areas."

Hmmmm - just 16% average, over a 9 year plan?

Seems an extreme effort for such a statistic. That is one good reason why I signed the petition. Apparently, it is exactly the same reason why our local farmers do not support the cull either.

Don't worry, Gness. I shall educate all the people I know and work with, now I have so much more information.

http://www.defra.gov....-to-tackle-bovine-tb/

[gness]

When I saw my first live badgers I gave the response most people give which is that they are much smaller that the dead ones on the roadside. The dead ones are bloated of course.
Still, if the poor bu99ers put on a bit of weight it's no reason to shoot them between the eyes. And as Wolf says.....what does this solution say about us?
Well, looking at the world....everything.