The Independent Expert Panel has confirmed what we all expected: that free-shooting of badgers doesn’t work, causes suffering, is ineffective and costly. It’s now official: the badger cull failed.
Technically the report is still to be published, but it’s leaked and is damning in its appraisal. Whether or not the government listens is another matter, so the campaign goes on.
dW
1 Mar 2014Words
1 Mar 2014Try these… no need to link
dW
1 Mar 2014Well … that didn’t work very well at all, did it?
Adele
1 Mar 2014I’m currently reading a book called ”Farmageddon’ by Philip Lymbery which examines how factory farming is causing disease, destroying the environment and abusing antibiotics. Given that our government is apparently prepared to ignore all the science over that, their attitude to badgers fits in perfectly.
dW
1 Mar 2014Maybe you folk should have an MP cull.
Adele
1 Mar 2014I’m afraid most of the examples in that book are global, including the appalling treatment of livestock in the western USA feedlots and the giant chicken farms in Georgia – and the pollution of Chesapeake bay by livestock manure.
In many ways our government’s treatment of badgers is mirrored by the coyote bounty in Saskatchewan (supposedly for sheep) and the bison slaughter in Montana (allegedly to stop bison spreading TB to cattle). It really is time for the public to wake up and ask what kind of agriculture we want in the 21st century. Preferably one that triggers less wildlife abuse.
Darko
1 Mar 2014The problem, as always, are people. There are too many of us on this planet and we all need food. When it comes to that, politicians always pull that as a main reason and stress that we need to choose: us or them (wildlife). Even though it is rarely that simple, majority of people fall for that trick and go after their basic instincts. Thinking through the problem is much harder :irked:
As for the cull failure, at least one good news in so many bad ones…..
Adele
1 Mar 2014Yes, but the industrialisation of agriculture in its most recent form is a few people trying to squeeze maximum profit from the system – they’re not interested in feeding the world, just making money from it. Farmers can be their victims too; I’m sure you know about GM crops and how this has allowed big corporations to patent certain varieties, basically stopping farmers from keeping their own seed. It’s also true that some types of food are much more sustainable than others – factory-farmed meat, in particular, is hugely wasteful: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat
And in terms of things that should be illegal, feeding antibiotics to livestock as a growth stimulant (as is common in factory farms) is as bad as it gets. Every time they do it, they help bacteria evolve immunity. Sooner or later, we won’t have any antibiotics left. Cheap meat won’t look so cheap then 🙁
Words
1 Mar 2014Yes the breakdown in small farming communities and move to cash non-food crops is a major problem. Not allowing farmers to keep seed due to patents is frankly obscene.
dW
1 Mar 2014Wasteful, yes … and cruel, as well. We just had an egg-production “factory” burn down over here … total loss. It was a building about the size of a small warehouse, and they mentioned that there were over 300,000 chickens in there … all burnt up. One of the most disgraceful things I’ve ever heard.
Darko
2 Mar 2014Oh, I know about GMO and I agree to what you’ve said. And I agree about antibiotics that they feed livestock with. Back in ’90, the biggest Serbian agricultural company used antibiotics almost without control; persons who were responsible for feeding and milking cows were paid by the amount of milk delivered; they couldn’t let cows get sick so they were giving them antibiotics on a daily basis and no one cared how much it affected health of consumers. Knowing that most of the kids were using that milk and dairy products, consequences will be known in a not distant future.
Adele
2 Mar 2014While I don’t condone any stealing, I do find it ironic that I have seen people in court for taking food to feed their children, while these dreadful corporations are abusing the entire food production system and destroying human lives, the environment and our wildlife to line their own pockets. :angry:
dW
2 Mar 2014Comes the revolution …
Words
1 Mar 2014Darko, not so much too many people, but that we grow the wrong things. We have farms creating bio-fuels not food, farms for cattle/meat production which takes far more land and food than is needed to feed people. It’s about choices. I eat meat so I’m part of the problem, I know; but there are solutions and most of them are political and economic.
dW
1 Mar 2014NOW you’re talkin’! Maybe a plague?
Words
1 Mar 2014This needs a ‘like’ button!
Words
1 Mar 2014The absurdity of the badger cull is that all the evidence points to it making things worse. This is just a blood-lust and pay-back for the fox hunting ban. The sooner this government goes the better. And they will go.
Adele
1 Mar 2014I don’t ‘do’ politics but the current administration has given me so many reasons to dislike them that I could sit here writing for hours! Unfortunately, due to our voting system, they’re in no danger of losing their MP in this constituency. I just hope that there are a lot of people who care about wildlife in the marginals.
Words
1 Mar 2014I’m in a marginal and my MP has consistently supported the cull. The current lot are without doubt the worst government I’ve lived through, worse even than the darkest moments of Thatcherism.