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Would you sacrifice a badger to save a cow ?
Posted 11-Jul-2008 at 01:45 AM by saltedm8
Badgers are helping to shorten our supply of food by spreading Bovine tuberculosis to literally thousands of stocked farm cows whilst driving up prices and shortening beef supplies. Each one of the cows that gets infected must be slaughtered at the cost of millions of pounds per year, coming from tax payers money.
Tuberculosis is a bacteria that damages the animals lungs and eventually leads to its death, leaving farmers powerless and with no choice but to put these animals down at the taxpayers expense. The epidemic is sweeping the nation and farmers are annoyed that they cannot do anything about it because since 1967 it has been illegal to trap or shoot badgers. Farmers argue that this law needs to be reviewed in light of this recent TB outbreak.
Due to the seriousness of the outbreak I could only summarise that farmers should be allowed to control the amount of badger sets that are laid on their land by means of shooting if any of their cows get infected with tuberculosis, as obviously most these badgers would be infected and would only start the vicious circle again. At the end of the day, human welfare has to come first in my book, all over the world animals die at human hands for no apparent reason, not for food, just for fun, I am against this sort of killing, but to me, there is a reason these infected badgers need to be kept under close control.
The price of a bullet is far cheaper than the price and upkeep of cows that then need to be destroyed. The badgers can be caught, shot and destroyed humanly at a fraction of the cost of the effects it would have if we let them roam free to infect more cows. Farmers could loose their livelihood if this epidemic is allowed to continue, there are hundreds of farms at risk from closure as it is, do we really need something else that is going to take the 'good food' off the shelves of the supermarket ? Don't we suffer enough with poor quality and foreign foods ? I believe that local food is the best and the most fresh food type that you can buy, I don't want my food to be in a lorry then on a boat then on another lorry then in a warehouse then on another lorry to be delivered to supermarkets, the fuel problems in England are bad enough without adding to the problem by not using local produce because someone has decided that we cannot protect our farms from diseases like TB. Something has to be done and quick.... for those reasons I WOULD sacrifice a badger to save a cow.
Total Comments 6
Comments
 |  I would definately make the sacrifice. But sacrificing every badger in the world to rid of this would be both immoral and more than likely really disturb the food chain. Cows obviously have more priority as most of world both drink cows milk and eat beef. It just seems unfair to kill them all, maybe a good thousand  |
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| |  I would say a hell of allot more than a thousand lol, i am not saying to wash them off the face of the earth, all i am saying is that the population needs to be kept under control on farm land, within reason... |
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| |  Beef Curry versus Badger Curry.Beef curry wins  |
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| | @Salty... so keep them all locked away and fed in kennels in the country somewhere? @cookie... do you mean kill the cows for food and let the badgers be? Apparently a friend of mine has eaten badger meat before. Sick. |
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| |  The reports are still out on this one. I debated this issue with a farmer in Devon. He has been calling for a total cull for ages. My question to him? "How did you feel when the Government marched onto your land and destroyed your sheep on the fear that scrapie may be the precursor to NvCjd?" His reply? "I was sick, how do you THINK I would feel?" My reply: "So how do you think if hundreds of badger groups were to have these animals destroyed for the same nefarious reasons would feel?" After a few months, I still have not had an answer. Farmers have to look further afield than their doorstep and wild animals for this one. Imported cattle appear, on some lists, as more likely the culprit. And I won't go into the whole NvCjd rubbish. I believe the Government is to blame. By drenching the spines of all our herds in an over strength solution to kill warble fly infestation. But of course, the Government would never admit to that, would they? Kill all the badgers and you lose a wonderful part of our natural fauna. You won't get them back. More research needs to be done. |
| Updated 12-Oct-2008 at 11:16 AM by chevron |
| |  Tell them all to go to Toad hall! |
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