Lies and excuses

The government funded extermination of wildlife has not gone according to plan. The company paid to carry out the badger cull failed to meet its targets.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24443110

No worries though, all you have to do is just change the figures to suit, and then throw in a few excuses, and all is fine

Having bagged too few, they just changed the estimate for how many badgers there are, and then blamed the weather, protesters, and anything else they can think of.

 

An unrealistic and thankless task from the very start IMHO. There are too few naturists who understand the habits of badgers. They are nocturnal and rarely seen in the wild.
Only a specific treatment to render them sterile could bring about a successful long term culling. It would take a long, long time to achieve and how do you stop it getting into other animals?
Jenny

 

Badgers don't kill Cows. Farmers do.

 

Jenny do you mean naturists.......or naturalists.

 

Ooops, the latter Sheal.
Mind wandering again...
Jenny

 

Oooh you are cheeky


Epic fail, are the words that today's younger generation would use. A complete disgrace, and once again the out sourcing model proves inadequate and will again be over budget no doubt.

Nature has a way of keeping balance, perhaps we should help her to keep it by letting our forna, have some of that nature, I feel confident that all members of GC do so.

(except slugs and snails, who need to be met with instant termination )

 

We all have to do our bit to fight disease, we all travel from here to there, farm to farm, field to field, home to home, companys to companys and country to country where is the Biosecurity these days

 

a bad shoot, this could be a good excuese as well

 

Hmm, considering the planet is currently carrying 7 billion humans Nature seems to be having a bit of a wobble.

 

Some interesting reading here from the independent Somerset County Councillor for Bishops
Lydeard. http://mikerigby.org/2013/09/13/learned-badger-cull/ and http://mikerigby.org/2013/09/27/badger-cull-2-update/ who appears to be rationally considering the whole issue, when so many others appear to have entrenched views.

I wonder what he'll have to say about the revised badger population numbers? (that if correct would've meant if the shooters had met previous targets they would have completely exterminated badgers in West Somerset and Gloucestershire and still would've been looking for more to kill)

 

Is there even a legit need for a badger cull?

I don't mean that as a leading question, I just mean, badgers have been around forever haven't they? And maybe its just because I'm a towny but it seems to me that the biggest threats we've seen to cattle (apart from the abattoir I mean) has been dirty human practices like when mad cow disease was found to have been caused by feeding cattle with animal waste and such, or foot and mouth which I believe last time was found to have been caused by careless disposal of waste from a research place if I remember the news correctly.

I'm not entirely blinkered. I know that badgers cause a headache for farmers and other landowners, but that's mostly crop damage I believe, partly because badgers eat the crops, and partly because they undermine them, but in both cases, if I understand correctly (and I may not), the damage is very minimal compared with damage caused by other wild animals such as rabbits and deer.

I'm led to believe that badgers, being omnivores, sometimes munch on rabbits, which makes them an ally to me, as on my land I've seen infinitely more damage from rabbits than from badgers, even though I know I have both living on there.

Given the estimated numbers of badgers, either of the estimates that is, it seems to me that already there are not that many. The earlier, larger estimate for badger numbers in Gloucestershire was 3,400. According to wikipedia, there are about 858,000 people in that same county, so putting it into perspective, the original, larger estimate would have meant that there's one badger per 252 people. That doesn't sound like many to me. Extrapolating that across the whole country that would mean there could be about 240,000 badgers in the whole of the UK. Compare that with an estimated 45,000,000 rabbits or 1,000,000 deer. Both of which are very destructive creatures yet go largely ignored, so maybe I'm missing something here, but why, as tax payers, are we funding the extermination of badgers yet turning a blind eye to other more destructive species?

I can't see the logic. I feel there must be some hidden agenda, some financial gain for some people, but I personally can't see it.

I'm prepared to be enlightened.

 

Oh, and now there's talk of gassing them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24475034

I know its considered 'safe', but I believe it involves putting pellets in a the burrows that then react and release deadly cyanide gas. I'm not sure I like that idea.

 

All I can add in my defence, is that a lot of humans are so far departed from the natural, real world, it is no surprise. We keep adding to the world at the same time as we take from the world, problem is the more we add (humans) the more gets taken. Nature, will send another plague or whatever to cull humans, but we are so far advanced that we can fight back (sometimes wrongly in my opinion). You only have to look at the 'freak' weather storms, Volcanic eruptions, Earthquakes, etc, to see how She is trying to keep our numbers down, never the less, Humans find a way to combat the effects.

In essence, we are too good for our own good.

Culling another species for our own benefit is an example of this, lets all kill a few disease spreaders and have more meat on our plate that we do not need, and very quickly there would be nothing and no one left.

sad sad world.

 

The gassing of Badgers has apparently been going on for some time....i read a report where farmers have been taking the law into their own hands and gassing by way of the 'Vehicle and hose' method straight into the sett of sleeping Badgers....which is illegal and carries a prison sentence .... but turns out no farmer has been caught yet....