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Lorraine attempts to annul the badger cull
posted on 06/11/2009

Speech on badger cull

The Minister’s decision to lay the Tuberculosis (Wales) Order was, I believe, poorly-judged and likely to worsen the spread of bovine tuberculosis in Wales. I did not put my name to this Motion lightly and spent many a restless night coming to my decision. In the end, I just couldn’t stand by and let this Order go through without a last minute bid to stop this folly. I am calling for the Minister to drop the Order and replace it with a new Order to allow a vaccination pilot scheme only. I appreciate that the Order includes vaccination, but having two schemes in place would mean that it would be impossible to know what has worked. Even the Minister’s Chief Vet said ‘If we are successful we won’t be able to say for sure whether is the cull or our other actions that did it, it will be a combination of these measures – she was referring to cattle-based measures’.

I do not believe that killing badgers as a means of tackling this problem is scientifically or morally justified.

I use the word ‘killing’ because a ‘cull’ is defined as ‘the removal of selected individuals.. usually due to undesirable characteristics.’ The Minister’s Order will trap and kill all badgers that are caught, irrespective of their TB status.

I could just reiterate my arguments against the Minister’s Order, which have been well rehearsed in this Chamber but today, I want to concentrate on what others’ have said, some of whom are farmers in Pembrokeshire.

 Eunice and Carron Meredith say this: We run an organic extensive farm and have farmed since 1967 - we have never had a case of bTB. We own 55 acres of woodland which is a badger city with huge numbers of healthy badgers causing no harm to anyone and they also live and move about amongst the cattle.

We have always believed TB to be caused by intensive farming and the way to control TB is to deal with the welfare, health and movement of cattle. Coming on to our farm to cull our healthy badger population would be criminal. Why mess with a healthy woodland community which manages itself? 

If the Welsh Assembly Government insist on being so irresponsible as to cull badgers then please make sure they do not have the powers to come on to farms where there haven't been any cases of TB, like ours. At least leave healthy farms out of the cull.

You are welcome to visit our farm at any time and I think a visit to our farm and then a visit to a neighbouring intensive dairy farm which has had TB will clearly show that animal welfare is the key to TB.

Willow Newland – I am writing this letter on behalf of all young people. Seas are over-fished, land intensively farmed and wildlife depleted. You are now proposing to kill a native species and you don’t even have the scientific evidence to back your decision. I ride through a farm which has had outbreaks of bTB. The land is desert and has no wildlife anywhere and the cows are kept in dire conditions. Calves are kept in sheds covered in muck which they have to lie in. I want bio-diverse farming, not intensive farming where animals are treated like machines. I also know farms which are farmed bio-diversely where badgers and other wildlife live side by side with live stock with no outbreaks of bTB. Why don’t you, instead of spending money culling badgers, help support farmers by giving them the money so they can buy in enough clean bedding and create more space to cope efficiently.

The Woodland Trust is extremely uneasy about this proposed cull. They believe that the best scientific evidence does not point to the destruction of badgers as an effective method of TB eradication.  Like the Minister’s chief Vet, the Woodland Trust doesn’t think it will be possible to measure the results if a cull is undertaken alongside cattle-based measures and believe that a stand-alone cattle-based trial should be undertaken.

Then we come to PAC – Pembrokshire against the cull – made up of a group of landowners, farmers and residents living in the proposed cull area. They have produced a very good leaflet with some interesting points and questions: they ask when will farmers have the courage to accept that they are spreading the disease with careless cattle trading activities – they ask this because the director of the Welsh government’s animal health division said on 23^rd June this year ‘there is only one way the disease gets into a clean area, and that’s by moving infected animals’.

Work done at Woodchester Park, for the past 30 years, shows that badgers live in social groups usually living within the same group all their lives or just moving to another sett rather than establishing a new one. So setts are often many years old.

A group will not give up its home easily and will defend it’s area by patrolling it’s boundaries. Radio tracking in Woodchester Park has shown that badgers rarely venture outside their own boundary unless they are aware of any changes or disturbances going on. This iswhen they move around to investigate. A huge number of badgers would have to be killed to make any difference and in the early days of a cull, it is cheap and easy to trap and exterminate animals but it gets harder and more expensive as time goes on because they move around.

More badgers caught in farm buildings have bTB than those caught nearer their sett, they are not sure if this is because the badgers have picked up TB because they move around or if they move around because they have TB. BUT, it doesn’t really matter and that the important thing is to find a way to stop them getting in to farm buildings. It’s good practice to keep all wildlife away from feed as much as possible for all types of bacteria.

In conclusion, this is not a cull, it’s a kill, and Pembrokeshire will be forever known as the killing fields, this is not a cull, it’s a slaughter.

Minister, please reconsider this Order, and to members in this Chamber, please support this motion to annul the Order.