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Farmers offered £25 to find dead badgers

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:53 pm
by Christel
Farmers offered £25 to find dead badgers, as government launch study to try and end culling
Fresh badger carcasses will be checked by government scientists for bovine tuberculosis
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... nch-study/

Farmers have been offered £25 to find dead badgers as the government launches a study to try to end culling.

Ministers have promised to end new badger cull licences by 2022, meaning that tens of thousands of the animals could still be killed before these permits expire.

Thousands of badgers are killed each year because they spread bovine tuberculosis to cows, threatening farmers' herds. In the last year, 27,000 cattle were slaughtered because of the disease.

Now, officials hope to find where in the country badgers carry the disease as they decide where to grant new cull licences.

In a U-Turn from policies under previous Conservative administrations, Boris Johnson's government has been vocally keen to end the cull, and move towards vaccinations instead.

Conservative campaigners including environment minister Lord Goldsmith and Carrie Symonds, fiancee of the Prime Minister, have long campaigned for the cull to end, and argued that it is unpopular among voters.

Farmers in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and East Sussex, collectively known as the southern edge area, are being urged to take part.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) is hoping to start the scheme in spring 2021 and end it in 2022.

They want to collect a number of fresh, found-dead badger carcasses, and are particularly interested in those killed on roads in these counties.

The animals will then be tested for bovine TB, the AHPA confirmed.

Government officials have segmented the country into three bovine TB risk areas; High Risk, Low Risk and the Edge Area which lies between the two.

The study hopes to pinpoint the prevalence of the disease in this edge area to see if culling is required and decide how to manage the disease.

"We are looking for volunteers to help collect badger carcasses," an APHA spokesperson said.

"Carcasses will need to be fresh and collected according to a simple protocol that will be provided along with collection kits containing everything needed by collectors.

"Carcasses will then be collected from your premises by a specialist courier and taken to the University of Nottingham.

"We offer a contribution of £25 towards any personal expenses associated with the collection of carcasses."

A Defra spokesperson said: “Bovine TB is one of the most difficult and intractable animal health challenges that the UK faces today, causing considerable trauma for farmers and costing taxpayers over £100 million every year.

“No one wants to continue the cull of a protected species indefinitely. That is why we are accelerating other elements of our strategy, including vaccination and improved testing so that we can eradicate this insidious disease and start to phase out badger culling in England.”
Is that with or without holes?
O:-)

Re: Farmers offered £25 to find dead badgers

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:53 pm
by snayperskaya
What about tyre marks????

Re: Farmers offered £25 to find dead badgers

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:11 am
by meles meles
* Sends a text to BoJo *

"Can we have £25 for every ooman you bury in our attic?"

Re: Farmers offered £25 to find dead badgers

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 7:59 am
by howa1500
Christel wrote:
Farmers offered £25 to find dead badgers, as government launch study to try and end culling
Fresh badger carcasses will be checked by government scientists for bovine tuberculosis
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... nch-study/

Farmers have been offered £25 to find dead badgers as the government launches a study to try to end culling.

Ministers have promised to end new badger cull licences by 2022, meaning that tens of thousands of the animals could still be killed before these permits expire.

Thousands of badgers are killed each year because they spread bovine tuberculosis to cows, threatening farmers' herds. In the last year, 27,000 cattle were slaughtered because of the disease.

Now, officials hope to find where in the country badgers carry the disease as they decide where to grant new cull licences.

In a U-Turn from policies under previous Conservative administrations, Boris Johnson's government has been vocally keen to end the cull, and move towards vaccinations instead.

Conservative campaigners including environment minister Lord Goldsmith and Carrie Symonds, fiancee of the Prime Minister, have long campaigned for the cull to end, and argued that it is unpopular among voters.

Farmers in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and East Sussex, collectively known as the southern edge area, are being urged to take part.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) is hoping to start the scheme in spring 2021 and end it in 2022.

They want to collect a number of fresh, found-dead badger carcasses, and are particularly interested in those killed on roads in these counties.

The animals will then be tested for bovine TB, the AHPA confirmed.

Government officials have segmented the country into three bovine TB risk areas; High Risk, Low Risk and the Edge Area which lies between the two.

The study hopes to pinpoint the prevalence of the disease in this edge area to see if culling is required and decide how to manage the disease.

"We are looking for volunteers to help collect badger carcasses," an APHA spokesperson said.

"Carcasses will need to be fresh and collected according to a simple protocol that will be provided along with collection kits containing everything needed by collectors.

"Carcasses will then be collected from your premises by a specialist courier and taken to the University of Nottingham.

"We offer a contribution of £25 towards any personal expenses associated with the collection of carcasses."

A Defra spokesperson said: “Bovine TB is one of the most difficult and intractable animal health challenges that the UK faces today, causing considerable trauma for farmers and costing taxpayers over £100 million every year.

“No one wants to continue the cull of a protected species indefinitely. That is why we are accelerating other elements of our strategy, including vaccination and improved testing so that we can eradicate this insidious disease and start to phase out badger culling in England.”
Is that with or without holes?
O:-)
I think it mostly depends on the size of the hole.

Re: Farmers offered £25 to find dead badgers

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2021 6:31 pm
by shugie
meles meles wrote:* Sends a text to BoJo *

"Can we have £25 for every ooman you bury in our attic?"
Can you have a word with your mates about the sett expansion in our garden please? Either they intend to grow very large indeed, or they're undertaking contracting work for HS2.

They're definitely not dead.