Take care, Billy the Badger

[Shredhead]

Billy - if you're reading this, please take care on your summer holidays and next season on any away trips to Cardiff, Swansea or Yeovil (in the Cups). A badger cull starts today in West Gloucestershire and West Somersethttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22730938. Stay out of the cull areas. We love ya. :022:

[Rudolph]

Grim times.

[Holders]

How many people heard Sir John Krebs on radio the other day saying that there is no scientific basis for the badger cull, indeed, that it could increase the risk of TB in cattle? He's no tree-hugger, he's the epidemiologist who was called in to stop the spread of the last Foot and Mouth outbreak.

[stokesy]

hopefully find a safe house in these drastic times

[Lighthouse]

The badgers around here have destroyed a home by digging under the foundations and they have done so much damage to my garden I had to spend all the money we had trying to make it safe from collapse. They shifted tons of dirt and although I would have liked to kill them I was stopped by the law. So the disturbance was enough for now to force them onto somebody else.

I have seen enough evidence to suggest they do spread TB to cattle. As for a cull I am not sure what good it would do. But I hate the blimmin things so would welcome somebody finding away to keep them from encroaching onto built up areas. Same with foxes.

And no I don't care that their natural habitat is being destroyed. As they are now destroying mine.

DIE BILLY DIE.

[Nero]

or did you destroy their home by building your house on their home Mr Lighthouse

LIVE BILLY LIVE

[stokesy]

save billy and his family 049:gif

[Lighthouse]

or did you destroy their home by building your house on their home Mr Lighthouse

LIVE BILLY LIVE

Bluster fluster spit red cheeks hurraph.

I was here first. 30 Years after I was here, they came in uninvited and set up home and then proceeded to dig underneath my lovely back garden. However if you make alot  of noise by spending money you haven't got and digging up the wild bits of the garden. Then you shift the tons of Earth they shifted. Then shout rude words at them down the main entrance to their holey home. The Badgers complain to the council and sod off somewhere else. Can't take it you see. At least I hope they have all gone. I am not allowed to find out in case it disturbs those that may or may not be there.

Bluster fluster Badger Buggers Die.  

[Shredhead]

or did you destroy their home by building your house on their home Mr Lighthouse

LIVE BILLY LIVE

Bluster fluster spit red cheeks hurraph.

I was here first. 30 Years after I was here, they came in uninvited and set up home and then proceeded to dig underneath my lovely back garden. However if you make alot  of noise by spending money you haven't got and digging up the wild bits of the garden. Then you shift the tons of Earth they shifted. Then shout rude words at them down the main entrance to their holey home. The Badgers complain to the council and sod off somewhere else. Can't take it you see. At least I hope they have all gone. I am not allowed to find out in case it disturbs those that may or may not be there.

Bluster fluster Badger Buggers Die.  

Aha, but the badgers that moved onto the land you 'own' were probably displaced by development or humans elsewhere. Watch this and I dare you not to love the little fellas:Badgers

[ScalleysDad]

We have relations who do 'proper farming', friends who live in the countryside, know a bunch of townies and city dwellers and part of my empire is Valley Parks and a long stretch of greenery alongside the Exe. Badgers are as divisive as the late Mrs T and I have still to hear the definitive word. I have seen a sixty year old farmer crying his heart out and know of people getting a real buzz out of feeding cubs at the bottom of their garden. Were they green and scaly or just a boring brownie colour would we really care? Deer are becoming a major forestry pest and road hazard in some parts of Devon and there have been calls for a cull frequently questioned by the green lobby and yet a deer cull has been on going for years it just hasn't attracted that much attention. I think the method of using licenced marksman shooting on open ground makes the cull seem somewhat civilised. The first proposals for the badger cull had gassing the dens, traps, targeting pregnant females and snares. The anti lobby had everything it needed. The Somerset cull was a surprise as mid Devon had the bigger TB stats but it will be on a similar footing to the deer culls in that marksman will focus on specific areas. Even a local farmer friend has doubts about this method as a badger free zone is an open invitation to .......... an expanding adjacent badger commune. Its going to be messy all round. 

[Shredhead]

I even saw a badger the other day in Legoland, although it was strangely immobile and had an odd plastic, angular appearance.

[Lighthouse]

Just because Badgers were displaced from their land doesn't mean they can come onto mine and displace me. That's how wars are started. What with the Weed Wars and the Badger Wars and the Fox Insurgents. I tell you none of us are safe in our beds.

[epsomraver]

We have relations who do 'proper farming', friends who live in the countryside, know a bunch of townies and city dwellers and part of my empire is Valley Parks and a long stretch of greenery alongside the Exe. Badgers are as divisive as the late Mrs T and I have still to hear the definitive word. I have seen a sixty year old farmer crying his heart out and know of people getting a real buzz out of feeding cubs at the bottom of their garden. Were they green and scaly or just a boring brownie colour would we really care? Deer are becoming a major forestry pest and road hazard in some parts of Devon and there have been calls for a cull frequently questioned by the green lobby and yet a deer cull has been on going for years it just hasn't attracted that much attention. I think the method of using licenced marksman shooting on open ground makes the cull seem somewhat civilised. The first proposals for the badger cull had gassing the dens, traps, targeting pregnant females and snares. The anti lobby had everything it needed. The Somerset cull was a surprise as mid Devon had the bigger TB stats but it will be on a similar footing to the deer culls in that marksman will focus on specific areas. Even a local farmer friend has doubts about this method as a badger free zone is an open invitation to .......... an expanding adjacent badger commune. Its going to be messy all round.  

:plus one: the only people who should have a say are people who live in and work in the country, , the BBC always show a badger on their news slot, why not a heard of 60 dairy cows all dead because one of them showed up in a not that reliable test.

[nose]

How many people heard Sir John Krebs on radio the other day saying that there is no scientific basis for the badger cull, indeed, that it could increase the risk of TB in cattle? He's no tree-hugger, he's the epidemiologist who was called in to stop the spread of the last Foot and Mouth outbreak.

I heard this. Krebs quoted facts and not populist stuff that would appeal to ignorance and prejudice. The cull is political no more no less, it isn't the right thing to do at all.

The facts spoke for themselves, the cull will have a minor short term effect and then the situation will return to the status quo or potentially worse.

When the badgers are actually killed will they be investigated to see just how many were actually carrying bovine TB? That at least would be interesting and useful

[epsomraver]

If it is so ineffective then why has it been a success in Ireland and  New Zealand to name two

[nose]

the reason it works in those places is because I believe they kill in such high quantities.  You have to virtually eliminate the badger population totally to make it work and that is not proposed in the UK.
If you are happy to make badgers extinct, then the cull is the correct thing to do, but killing the quantity that is proposed here will not be statistically sensible.
Check out what Krebs, the eminent and usually correct scientist says, he works purely on evidence.

[ScalleysDad]

We did the big five 0 tour to NZ a couple of years ago and the farmers we met actually despaired of the total kill policy the government had implemented a few years earlier. Large areas were cordoned off and everything within it was wiped out. In some circles the feeling was that in starting again the indigenous stock would return. However it has'nt and some of these same areas are bereft of any wildlife and are dead zones or the more 'superior' invaders, rabbits, toads, ornamental plants/garden escapees etc are simply marching back in.

[epsomraver]

I stand corrected, but there has to a way to stop this Bovine TB, I had a friend's dad who had worked all his working life 40 years plus  to build up a prize dairy herd to see the lot slaughtered in one day, something that will take years to get back but he won't be doing it, he has gone over to Alpacas , he cannot face it again

[Me-ate-Live, innit??]

 
If they (the non-farmers) are so concerned,  why don't they set up a group to treat  TB in Badgers ?? 


I will not be buying this anytime soon !!!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0000682T7/ref=asc_df_B0000682T713471306?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=shopdc156833-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B0000682T7