Lies and excuses

There are not too many humans. There are too many greedy, wasteful humans.

Of those cows that 'we' are trying to protect, once they go to slaughter, most of the animal will go to waste, either direct from the slaughterhouse, or when it makes it to the supermarkets and gets chucked while its still good just because of some quirky rules, or when it gets to our homes and we chuck half of it.

I eat meat, so I know I'm contributing to that problem, but at the same time, I don't eat anywhere near as much meat as some, and I hate waste with a passion. Just the other day I was saddened when I heard a kid refusing to entertain the idea of eating liver stew that had been made for them. That kid is happy enough to eat the animal's bum or drink the fatty juice from its boobs, or wear its skin on their feet, but for some reason the liver is off limits

I saw an interesting study a while ago about the human population. If you took every human on the planet and packed us all shoulder to shoulder, we wouldn't even fill one city (granted it was large city, but even so).

 

Its just another example of "The Custodians of the Countryside", wanting it all their own way.

When I was a kid, a long time ago, we had screening for TB and vaccinations, I'm sure you could do the same with cattle now, 45 yrs on.

Could anyone blame African farmers for wanting to wipe out Lions or wild dogs, we condemn them and send aid to set up reserves.

Over here we just wipe out any wildlife that threatens farmers livelyhoods, and lets face it, we aint got much left.

 

@Loli , no real surprise then, with successive governments favouring the private Enterprise route, but very sad and appalling.

@clueless1 'There are too many greedy, wasteful humans.' I think that is what I was attempting to say, thank you for putting my thinking more succinctly.

 

Sorry C1, I have to disagree, the human population is well out of balance on this planet, we could lose a good few million and not even notice, the world population is rising at a stupid rate and if nothing is done by us to sort the problem I'm sure nature will sort it in the end.

 

Wolves were actively hunted to extinction in Britain because of the threat they posed to livestock. Now, as a consequence of that, we have a million deer doing extensive crop damage. Many of our larger birds of prey were sacked off for the same reason, now we have 45 million rabbits doing extensive damage. Some of the birds of prey have been reintroduced or protected to restore their numbers, and the livestock farmers illegally shoot them.

I used to see the sense in pheasants and grouse being hunted, after all they nick the seeds and young plants so we're told, until I learned that half the time they are actually bred in captivity and released into the wild just before the shooting season starts.

It just seems to me we keep making mistake after mistake, trying to rectify one mistake by making another.

It also seems to me that all of these problems would go away if people were just allowed to hunt deer and rabbits for themselves without fear of getting done (in a controlled way of course, its no good having a load of townies running around with loaded guns). Fewer rabbits and deer doing crop damage, less demand on the countryside for grazing, less demand on resources to keep people well fed etc. The only people to lose out would be the livestock farmers, but they could just put their land to other uses and still make a living surely.

 

In terms of population, humans as a species don't even come close to being at the top of the league table. The only reason we can say that there might be too many of us is that the way we choose to live places huge demands on natural resources, and that comes down to my 'wasteful, greedy' remark earlier. For example, and I like beef so I'm guilty, a cow uses a colossal amount of energy just to survive at rest. I don't know the figures, but what I'm getting at is that for every, say, 1000 calories that cow takes in, you get maybe 1 calorie out when you eat that cow, because 999 of the calories it got from the veg it ate while it was alive will have been used up by the cow just by its metabolic processes.

We should also consider that the only reason there are so many cows, sheep, pigs and goats in the world is because we farm them to eat. So its not so much that there are too many humans, just that the way we choose to live has a massive impact.

 

I think due to population, greed and other modern factors, going back to the old days when the people in the countryside just shot the odd deer for the pot is a bit of a non starter.
Things have moved on and farms are basically factories that produce food.

Anything that upsets that process must be destroyed otherwise there is not any profit to be made.
No profit. No farm, simple modern econonics.

 

My point exactly.

 

We cant go back to living in caves, it wont work.
Sure there are lots cows, but there wouldn't be if we didn't breed them.

The out of balance comes in when you regard wildlife, loss of habitat etc.
Farm animals dont count, they are of our making.
And what this thread is supposedly about, the loss of wildlife at the expense of farming.

 

A couple of interesting things here Clueless. First point......we are allowed to hunt rabbits legally.

My son now lives in America, his American in-laws originate from West Virginia and still return there regularly. His father-in-law is only legally allowed to shoot and kill three deer a year for his own use and has done that throughout his adult life living in a poor area. The point being, they still have wolves, large cats and other predators there to keep the deer numbers under control, having said that I don't know why there is a restriction to three deer, it could be a lack of numbers because of the predators, I will find out.

 

Only with the express permission of the owner of the land you take them from. Which is odd really, considering the landowner has a legal responsibility to control the rabbit numbers on his or her land if the rabbits in their area are considered to be a problem. Its in the Pests act 1954:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/2-3/68/section/1

If you get caught with a load of freshly shot rabbits and you can't prove you have permission to take them, you're in trouble. Sure you can take them from land that is not owned, but in the UK, pretty much every square inch is owned by someone.

Once again it comes down to ridiculous rules and laws. I've given permission to a number of people to take rabbits from my land, with certain strict rules attached, aimed at ensuring the safety of everyone and limiting my liability, but I'm always wary of granting permission because there are rules that say I'm responsible for anything that happens on my land. If somebody I didn't know was to be caught hunting on my land and the coppers phoned me to ask if I'd given them permission, I'd say no, because I don't want to be held responsible for anything they might have done, intentionally or otherwise, that they weren't supposed to. I.e. it is easier and safer to not grant permission.

 

They have many square miles of wild forest for the animals to roam and live in.
In Britain we have woods, but they are small by comparison, all "managed", and totally controlled.
There might be parts that are kind of wild, but not on the same scale by any means.

 

Have anybody/they tested a culled Badger to see if it had TB ?


Jack McH

 

Good question Jack!

 

No they're not testing for BTB, they're doing a test for DNA, so i've been toled, as the badgers live in family groups