Since the 1970s, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department
for Environment Food & Rural Affairs have been slaughtering cattle that test positive for bovine tuberculosis and blaming badgers for the spread of the disease.

Badgers have been persecuted for over 40 years, first by gassing with cyanide in their setts and for the last 7 years by trapping and shooting, often free shooting which leaves injured animals to die lingering deaths underground. The animals killed in the present Cull aren’t tested for TB, their bodies are incinerated and up to 250,000 individuals of an otherwise protected species, Britain’s largest surviving land carnivore, are likely to have been killed by the time the Cull ends.

The tuberculin skin test used on cattle and camelids is known to be inaccurate. For years a blood test has been promised but still, the routine testing of herds in the TB hot spot regions of Britain continues. Evidence indicates that the best way to reduce the incidence of TB in cattle would be to improve herd hygiene and biosecurity e.g. keeping new cattle quarantined for a minimum of 3 months, separating animals with dense hedges, not wire fences and ensuring that pens at markets where animals are bought and sold are thoroughly disinfected between each group. Although these suggestions have been around for over a century, dating from a time when 40% of the cases of TB in humans were linked back to TB in cattle, they still haven’t been enforced.

We’re still waiting for a routine blood test for cattle to be rolled out and in the meantime, many farm veterinary practices are content with the old, faulty regime as the regular tuberculin tests provide a regular income.

While Britain was in the EU it wasn’t possible to sell meat from vaccinated animals within the European Union, now we’re outside the EU a cattle vaccine against TB could be used, but this is always in development, never to be rolled out.

Camelids are more sensitive to the tuberculin used to prime the site of the skin test for TB. This means they’re more likely to show as reactors to the skin test even when they’re not actually infected. Alpacas and llamas should only be tested from blood samples for the TB bacillus.

As for the meat from the thousands of cattle that are slaughtered every year after testing positive for TB, it goes straight into the human food chain with MAFF admitting that this is sold to schools, hospitals and prisons. If TB is such a terrible disease, and before antibiotics and vaccination of the human population it was a killer, then why are the most vulnerable members of society being fed infected meat?

Evidence from the previous Randomised Badger Culling trial in the 1990s overseen by Lord Krebs, showed that culling badgers couldn’t provide a meaningful means of controlling TB in cattle. The results from the long-term study by the APHA at Woodchester in Gloucestershire show that transmission of TB between badgers and cattle is usually from cattle to badgers and that again, culling badgers doesn’t prevent the spread of TB in cattle. What should be done is the vaccination of both badgers and domestic animals.

A vaccine for badgers is already available. Why isn’t DEFRA vaccinating badgers instead of killing them?

A vaccine for cattle, and by implication one for camelids is in development and could now start to be rolled out.

Why won’t DEFRA allow Geronimo the alpaca to be tested using a more accurate process?

What is DEFRA hiding when the evidence is overwhelming that farmers, wildlife and the public are losing out from their failed unscientific policies?

We need change starting now, with the life of this one animal but moving on to review the whole government strategy regarding bovine tuberculosis.

1. An end to the Badger Cull and its replacement with badger vaccination.
2. Active trials of vaccination in cattle and camelids.
3. A move away from the inaccurate skin test in cattle to testing using blood samples only and for the tuberculin test to be scrapped immediately for use in camelids
   
   

Please sign this petition to end the senseless killing of innocent creatures