Badger survey! Please look, will take 2 minutes!

[Tashini]

haha yes, you are bad. no text back!!! lol

[Donald]

deffo not the vaccination! you should see some of the horrendous growths cattle seem to develop from receiving a shot! its disgusting

Try to think more along the lines of disease prevention

How can I trap and vaccinate them and kill if already infected?

Trap and vaccinate badgers would be vaccinating badgers that DON'T have TB.
If they were trapped but could not be vaccinated, they go to quarantine.

Take the trap and kill option as just killing badgers, regardless of them being TB carriers or not. That is what the government research culls have been doing so take that as the only option.

okay, so i wish you could have picked two. but surely, the only sensible option would be to vaccinate cattle as that is what you're trying to protect. i mean, we don't vaccinate/kill animals to defend ourselves. though, obviously upgrading security and minimising contact would be a sensible move...and would work best as a joint effort between the two options. when you start vaccinating badgers (or indeed killing them) you mess with the natural order. we don't vaccinate rabbits for mixymytosis (unsure as to speling of that).

Just the one option I'm afraid!
There is a vaccine for myxomatosis, so most rabbit owners have that as part of their vaccine programs (if they actually bother) so the spread between wild and domestic rabbits is next to zero. The problem with mixy is that the virus has actually begun to mutate to beat the vaccination, so trying to rid the wild population of it would be difficult and very very very expensive. It's a bit like painting a huge bridge, by the time you finish you have to go back and start again to keep it fresh. But that's a whole other topic

I'd be unhappy about our foodstuffs being given more drugs.
I'm also unhappy about our wildlife being slaughtered.

I'd vote for either of the other two, whichever is the most effective.

Vote for whatever you think would be the most effective. Vaccinating badgers or cattle?


And a final addition, this is Bovine TB (Mycobacterium bovis) -> bovis I am presuming is etymologically related to Bovinae, the family in which domestic cattle are ordered. Badgers are from Melinae. So I think it's safe to assume that Bovine TB is named so because it originated from them, not just because it affects them.

[bristol_bb4]

Try to think more along the lines of disease prevention

i do totally understand that and see it from that point of view. but by vaccinating the animal (which annoyingly enough usually ends up going into one of the most valuable parts of meat) almost makes the whole carcass non profitable (when you take into consideration the butchers time to break it down and prepare for sale) which causes alot of problems especially if your unlucky enough to end up with a few of them!

im talking completely from a butchers point of view, the slaughter house does know which animals have the vaccination and they know that 9 times out of 10 that it will result in the above mentioned growths but they arent under any legal obligation to tell their customers about it so that they dont have to devalue the carcass. I think the farmers should 100% remove any chance of the animals being infected in the first place.

[jjmartin349571]

Surely vaccinating badgers is more effective. Consider the turnover of cattle and the amount of time/vaccines required compared to the amount of time and resource required to vaccinate a population of badgers which iirc is declining like most wildlife. Plus you'd only need to vaccinate populations likely to come into contact with cattle.

Tempted to say kill them though, you seen what a badger does to a car at 60?

[Dbo]

Tempted to say kill them though, you seen what a badger does to a car at 60?

not a lot cause badgers cant run at 60mph

[jjmartin349571]

Tempted to say kill them though, you seen what a badger does to a car at 60?

not a lot cause badgers cant run at 60mph

I left the door wide open for that one

They can with some help from your front bumper

[toyracer69]

Let Nitin at them is in the list of options......


Just think of all the fun and games they could all have together.

[KeithB]

now I've got that bloody song going through my head again
ooooh it's a snake...........

[rob quilter]

now I've got that bloody song going through my head again
ooooh it's a snake...........

[Donald]

Thanks for your help guys no more weird animal subjects for a few months now!