More

Simon Hart, Conservative MP, Thinks Culling Plan 'Good For Badgers'

Badger Cull Good

First Posted: 18/10/11 15:09 Updated: 19/10/11 15:18   PA

Amazing
 Inspiring
 Funny
 Scary
 Hot
 Crazy
 Important
 Weird

Shooting tuberculosis-infected badgers is good for other badgers, an MP has said. 

Conservative Simon Hart believed a cull of the disease-riddled animals would help infection-free badgers thrive. Speaking as MPs debated Government plans for a pilot cull to cut bovine tuberculosis (TB), Mr Hart said: "The Government is absolutely right to draw a line under this and say 'enough is enough'.

"It is right for farmers, it is right for taxpayers, it is right for cattle, it is right for businesses and it is actually right for badgers. I find it quite frustrating that so little attention has been devoted to the welfare of badgers."

The Government plans to allow farmers and landowners to cull badgers at their own expense in a bid to tackle the disease in herds, which led to the slaughter of 25,000 cattle - and huge compensation payouts from taxpayers to farmers - in England last year.

Further consultations will be held before a widespread cull is brought in, but the Government plans to pilot culling in two areas, to test the "controlled shooting" of free-running badgers. The Coalition estimates policing the culls will cost £200,000 a year.

Tory James Gray told the Westminster Hall debate that a farmer in his North Wiltshire constituency saw up to 40 TB-infected badgers "staggering around" his farmyard. "Those badgers would not be helped even if we had a vaccine, because they are ill badgers," he said. "The only sensible way to destroy them is by shooting them."

Labour's Andrew Miller, who chairs the Commons' Science and Technology Select Committee, said a cull along England's border with Wales would be difficult to enforce when the Welsh Government had blocked a planned badger killing programme.

Labour's Mary Glindon for North Tyneside, who led the debate, called for the Government to speed up development of a vaccine rather than pursue a cull. "Culling is not the answer," she said. "Sound scientific evidence has told us we must move in a different direction."

Meanwhile shadow environment minister Huw Irranca-Davies branded a cull "untested and risky". But Agriculture Minister Jim Paice hit back saying doing nothing should not be an option.

He said: "We are having two pilots to establish whether it is effective, whether you can cull 70% of badgers over a six-week period and whether it is humane."

FOLLOW HUFFPOST UK POLITICS

Shooting tuberculosis-infected badgers is good for other badgers, an MP has said.  Conservative Simon Hart believed a cull of the disease-riddled animals would help infection-free ...
Shooting tuberculosis-infected badgers is good for other badgers, an MP has said.  Conservative Simon Hart believed a cull of the disease-riddled animals would help infection-free ...
Related News On Huffington Post:
 

Read more from Huffington Post bloggers:
Dylan Sharpe

Dylan Sharpe: Who is the Party of the Countryside?

Once upon a time that question was met with ridicule; the poser rendered a fool simply by having the temerity to ask it.
Mary Creagh

Mary Creagh: Government Has Got it Wrong on Badger Cull

Bovine TB is a terrible disease. Last year alone 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in England at a cost of £90 million to the taxpayer in testing and compensation for farmers. In hotspot areas like the South West, the toll on farmers and the rural community is immense. The Coalition Agreement promised farmers a science-led approach on bovine TB. With these proposals the government has turned their back on the science. The Environment Secretary has achieved the almost impossible. With the forests sell-off, her inept handling of wild animals in circuses and now an ill thought-out badger cull she has shot herself in the foot not once but 3 times. A hat trick unmatched by any other minister.
Mark Jones

Mark Jones: Government Cover Up On Badger Slaughter Opposition

Caroline Spelman's announcement of the Government's intention to sanction the slaughter of badgers last week was devastating, not only because of the obvious implications for the future of one of our most iconic wild mammals, but because once again she has ridden rough shod over the opinion of scientists and the public.

Filed by PA  | 

More in UK Politics...


 
 
  • Comments
  • 1
  • Pending Comments
  • 0
  • View FAQ
Comments are closed for this entry
View All
Recency  | 
Popularity
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
floodberg
Attorney (ret.)
870 Fans
23:49 on 18/10/2011
Simon Hart's ignorance is astounding, even for an MP.


Mr. Hart is proudly ignorant about the facts about bTb, cattle and transmission:
◙  His proposal to shoot only tubercular badgers is moronic;  you can't tell them apart.
◙  There are no statistics on the rate of transmission from badgers to cattle.
◙  Badgers aren't the only potential source for bTb infections in cattle:  Cattle, badgers and ten other animals carry bTb (deer, fox, mole, brown rat, mink, ferret, domestic cats).   bTb is primarily transmitted by breath between cattle, but may be transmitte­d secondaril­y by ingestion of infected excretions from/by any of these species.

Secondly, Hart is oblivious of the scientific studies on the results of badger culling.
◙  The causal connection between cattle and bTb being transmitted only by badgers is nonexistent.
◙  The only scientific studies indicate that bTb increases after badger culls:

Two papers to the journal Nature (2003, 2005) have demonstrat­ed that....an­ything less than a wide-scale­, blanket (i.e. as close to total eradicatio­n as possible) cull will only make the situation worse.   The data...sho­w that not only did culling have a negligible impact on bTb incidence within the study areas (roughly 19% decline), it actually lead to a 25% increase in cases of bTb in peripheral areas.  The biologists suggest that culling badgers causes a breakdown in the clan’s social cohesion; badgers leave the clan and move into neighbouri­ng areas, taking any infection with them.   Indeed, a paper to Biological Conservati­on...found a significan­t negative relationsh­ip between the severity of disturbanc­e and sett size in Northern Ireland's badger clans.  In other words, as the disturbanc­e got worse, the number of adult badgers in the clan declined.  The authors consider that this migration from the main sett was a result of a disturbanc­e-induced disruption in territoria­l behaviour.  Unfortunat­ely, it seems that the results of these studies, which cost some £30 million over six years...have been largely ignored by DEFRA and the NFU, who are going ahead with their cull as planned.  http://www­.wildlifeo­nline.me.u­k/badgers_­

As head of Countryside Alliance, Hart defended the right of hunters to 'nonviolently protest' the hunting ban (by illegally hunting.)  By opposing the ban, he labeled himself as someone who loves the terror of animals being killed cruelly. 

Badger culls are scientifically indefensible: They don't work.
Permalink  |