British badger bombardment

Shorts said:
I'm not saying you're conclusion's right or wrong but who's to say the roadkill increase isn't completely in proportion with rises in traffic levels?
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Good point indeed.

On the other hand, the increase in Traffic has corresponded with an apparent decrease in hedgehog roadkills. I don't also know if there is any proof that badgers are responsible for the hedgehog decline, or whether they are just a handy scapegoat.
 
Although we have a huge rabbit population here we are rather rural,and every year or 2 we have an outbreak of mixi which knocks the numbers back.
I heard from a friend along the road that the local farmer trapped 100 rabbits last year, and still the fields are attacked by both them and wood pigeons.

When I was a child rabbit was a rare sight now they are everywhere but other things have nearly vanished tortoiseshell butterflies for instance, though that is mainly down to a parasitic fly as much as anything.
 
Pertinax said:
Good point indeed.

On the other hand, the increase in Traffic has corresponded with an apparent decrease in hedgehog roadkills. I don't also know if there is any proof that badgers are responsible for the hedgehog decline, or whether they are just a handy scapegoat.
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Robin Page writing in the Telegraph the saturday before last had some good info on just such a topic, apparently it has been proved possibly by DNA testing of skins, that badgers rather than foxes are the main culprit I thought to keep the item but I think it has ben recycled.
 
H'mm. Robin Page, the gamekeeper's friend.

He is a strident voice in support of Songbird Survival, a thinly covered group of shooting interests that want culls of Sparrowhawks and Buzzards. Allegedly, Mr Page himself has been known to make unhappy noises about the increase in Marsh Harriers (which at about 400 nesting females are not yet on the verge of over-running the UK).

I stand by my earlier assertion - there is a tendency in some landowners the UK to look at any environmental issue and look for a predator to blame, and ideally kill. It really doesn't look good at the same time for us to be earnestly encouraging the inhabitants of (for instance) Kenya, Tanzania, India and Indonesia to learn to live with big cats, elephants and rhinos.
 
I can't comment on Robin Page i only know him from the occasional column he has in the Telegraph, I know he states he doesn't shoot or fish and runs a farm but that is about it and that they hate him on countryfile.(BBC TV)

I agree we are being very hypocritical asking others to protect the environment when we have wrecked ours and driven most of our impressive megafauna to extinction. sadly that is the way of the world do as I say not do as I do. It's interesting to note that most of the nations who campaign on the topic are the ones who by and large import a lot of food and timber from these same nations, and we don't have to battle the natural world to feed ourselves, Tesco at all and their suppliers do that on our behalf on the whole.
In my opinion until we can control the planet's worst pest (man) we can't really save much beyond what zoos will hold. If people are starving they won't give a fig about the national park status of an area, they will use it to feed from as we once did. Of course to express such a view is to be likend to the world's worst despots and tyrants.
 
I do not think for one minute that this badger cull will do anything beyond escaping hot air from a balloon ..! ;)

There has been talk for yonkers years blaming badgers for TB in cattle. There have been occassional papers on the subject and if I am correct the last Review Board could not find any meaningful case for badger culling as an effective means of controlling TB.

The curio is that no-one ever dares even suggest to cull cattle with TB. Nor dare we even invest even a fraction of the cost of badger culling into a proper vaccination programme or even vaccine development. This all in the playing in the hands of vested cattle industry bosses and EEC supra-economics.
 
All cattle that test positive for TB are slaughtered.
There has been a suggestion that many of the dead badgers seen on the road have been killed elsewhere, & made to look like road kill.
 
The other problem of course is no one believes statistics any more we have become very cynical may be we always were, but now everyone has a voice and there are vested interests on both sides of every argument these days.

i remember in the foot and mouth epidemic a decade ago, holland vaccinated their live stock we slaughtered ours, as a nation we seem to prefer kill to cure.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
I do not think for one minute that this badger cull will do anything beyond escaping hot air from a balloon ..! ;)

There has been talk for yonkers years blaming badgers for TB in cattle. There have been occassional papers on the subject and if I am correct the last Review Board could not find any meaningful case for badger culling as an effective means of controlling TB.

The curio is that no-one ever dares even suggest to cull cattle with TB. Nor dare we even invest even a fraction of the cost of badger culling into a proper vaccination programme or even vaccine development. This all in the playing in the hands of vested cattle industry bosses and EEC supra-economics.
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What is the situation in the Netherlands, KB? Is there a problem with TB in cattle there as well, and are Dutch Badgers also deemed to be a problem?
 
FBBird said:
There has been a suggestion that many of the dead badgers seen on the road have been killed elsewhere, & made to look like road kill.
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Indeed; I made this observation above - although two of the dead badgers I have seen on the road quite possibly were roadkill, the third had *no* external or internal injuries whatsoever - the reason I know this is that due to the extremely good condition of the body, I took the opportunity for a little amateur anatomical study :)
 
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