Are badgers the new fox ?

Now we have come to the conclusion that culling the Badger is/has to have a more widely encompassing investigation into its effectiveness as a TB deterrent in cattle and in the way in which the cull is carried out, whether effective or humanely, is the Badger meanwhile going to be rendered vermin in the same way in which most of Britain views the Fox ?

As bits of information come out as to the rather inhumane way in which 18% of culled Badgers took over 5 mins to die and that DEFRA and its affiliates are not doing an appropriate autopsy of the dead animals, it is quite possible to conceive the idea that they are not going to learn from this disaster and ensure the cull is a humane and effective deterrent in the near future. Meanwhile the Badger will continue to spread the disease, if we are to believe the politically motivated scientists, and enhance the already hostile attitude to one of the countries most unknown and underexposed wild animals. The continuous badgering of the species by the Government and the Farmers Union will only make that worse for the poor blighted creatures and its looks certain that they will suffer the same fate as that of the fox, hunted out of the countryside into what will become its oblivion within the suburbs of our towns and cities.

I can only see a nightmare of unscrupulous people, catching and trapping the Badgers as they breed closer to towns and use them for their nefarious pastime of Badger baiting. They will also suffer the same fate of an inbred bad gene pool and I can only guess at what will substitute the Foxes mange in the badgers case of practically living under one roof and spreading disease very quickly from neighbour to neighbour.

Either the Badger comes out the victor as being found not guilty of spreading TB and it gets left alone, or the trend continues and the cull becomes the Badgers Vietnam and we see both a decline and extermination of the Badgers future.

I suppose/hope/pray it will come to light in the not too distant future that culls, as a way of nulling the spread of a disease, only works when all of that species is eradicated, in much the same way a vaccine eventually eradicates a disease by nature of its potent application on a pandemic scale, is pointless, as no-one wants to put a species to extinction because of an inability to cause a solution to a widespread problem of something like bovine TB, where money is the driving factor in the choices made to cause such an extinction.

Vaccination is complex and extremely costly, but so is the destruction of infected cattle and the loss to the farmer and the country's exports.

Stop gap culls only profit the government as a way of placating the cattle owners, who having a perceived knowledge of direct intervention by the authorities, fed by a family of scientific fraternity who are cash cowed by our politicians with safe and credible evidence, are more than affable to the idea that it works and will solve their problem.

Until more research is done, data is gathered and facts produced will we ever know just how much of an influence the badger has on cattle bovine TB, but inevitably, the Black and White is going to go into decline as a viable outfit in the wild and its place in our natural countryside, society's attitude towards the animal will veer away from its historical and nostalgic face of Britain's one, true and honest woodland citizen to that of a nuisance and a pest and one that costs our economy dear and should be controlled in numbers eternally or exterminated.

The mainstays of British countryside culture is slowly being eradicated itself and any semblance of what was past will disappear and become a distant memory, already the fox is doomed. As much as I hate blood sports, the only way we could as a civilisation secure the future generations of foxes would be to hunt them with fox hounds as they were once hunted by wolves before we exterminated every last one of them a few centuries ago.

But of course that option is no longer viable, not because the hunts use the hunt as an excuse to guarantee a kill and revel in the untimely end to a vermin or that the fox is the only vestige left of a bygone era when hunting was an acceptable and socially agreeable pastime, but the fact that it is not possible to responsibly hunt the fox anymore, as the areas left to the animal are too small, the fencing too prolific and the hunt too rabid and determined to deter escape as to render the whole exercise a Sport of Blood. Might as well shoot fish in a barrel.

Needless to say, the foxes future is done, its gene pool weakened with every generation when originally the wolf or conscientious hunts would needle out the sick and infirm, the stupid and the lame to ensure healthy, clever and fit foxes passed on the best genes. A fate which will hit the badger in similar proportions if we don't take the time to make sure we get the facts right.

But as I write this, I am saddened by my lack of enthusiasm for its future. Also by my bitterness towards society and my constant disbelief that people in responsible positions are pretending to be conservationists and are in fact just the opposite. There is not much left of old England or Deep England as it were once described and any bastions of folk lore and folk lore practices are a niche market championed by oldies in funny costumes, smoking funny fags and passing wind emphatically to tunes played on squeeze boxes. I look ahead and conclude that if it is possible to venture out into some kind of green stuff, then the only wildlife we might see are domesticated farm animals. I hope I don't live to see that.

Don't have the energy to read the full OP but I had no issue with the badger cull, or at least my only issue was with the farmers who pushed for it to stop TB - but when there was a F&M problem and the gov't said it had it contained provided there was ZERO movement of livestock, loads of farmers ignored it and ended up spreading the disease and massively increasing the problem, and re foxes - I bloody hate them.

Everyone outside of major urban areas gets this cutesy cutesy 'front cover of Town & Country' Fantastic Mr Fox image of what foxes are. Maybe in the country this is the case, but in town they are vermin, just a pest we need riding of - no matter how 'cute' they are.

The funny dichotomy here being Fantastic Mr Fox was the first ever book I read and I used to be a member of the LACS and still oppose fox-'hunting' and supported Labour introducing the ban.

Thanks for the reply TopHat.

Foxes are an emotive subject whether for or against them. And they are not the cutesy image you may think in the countryside, its the townies that try to cottage post card them and feed them to try and somehow domesticate them.

They can be viscous, but this is their nature, they are cold blooded killers, but in essence, you don't want any prey they capture to linger in death, so a quick end is their trade mark. Which to be fair is the end a fox gets when brought down by the lead fox hound, the rest catch up and tear the dead carcass apart.

Yes, they are a bloody pest and crap all over the place and are screaming these last few nights in our back garden.

They shouldn't be in an urban environment at all, but have been driven there by irresponsible country practices. Trapping, poisoning, shooting, and hunting have all contributed to the rise of the town fox.

I'm just really worried that the same fate will befall the badger. Spreading TB to cats and dogs, not sure if that is possible, but if so, the natural retribution will follow, condemn them to be pests.

5,000 badgers...........That's just a start..

I have a policy...When Farmers want something ..I want the opposite......

Never met one I like.....They know of every subsidy available......They don't give a toss about wildlife....Generally are so tight they wear the same clothes everyday and probably to bed at night too......They only know of one Tory ideal and that's low tax and that's good enough for them !!.......Ignorant slime..

Poor old badgers are an easy target............Reports published shows culling doesn't do any good or has a marginal at best but it's all good for votes in 2015.....and It's sport for the Farmers..

As the leader of the HSI said "The cull isn't about badgers but about the way the British government has cast aside scientific rigour, moral accountability and transparency to pacify those that would rather shoot wildlife than modernise the cattle industry..."

Very true..

However If anybody wanted me to sign a petition saying we needed to shoot 5,000 farmers..

Just tell me where to sign..

JubbaIsle wrote:Thanks for the reply TopHat.

Foxes are an emotive subject whether for or against them. And they are not the cutesy image you may think in the countryside, its the townies that try to cottage post card them and feed them to try and somehow domesticate them.

Don't think I've ever seen or heard of this in an urban environment, certainly not in London where they are regarded as pests/vermin on the same level as pigeons and rats.

Re the badger point, again, I don't really care. I don't go in for the cutesy children's story book image and if there's a valid reason for a cull then cull them.

What I do disagree with is their bloody massacre in the name of 'sport'.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:5,000 badgers...........That's just a start..

I have a policy...When Farmers want something ..I want the opposite......

Never met one I like.....They know of every subsidy available......They don't give a toss about wildlife....Generally are so tight they wear the same clothes everyday and probably to bed at night too......They only know of one Tory ideal and that's low tax and that's good enough for them !!.......Ignorant slime..

We were so close to being in agreement on something for once.........

My Father in law lived and still lives in a village called Prestbury in Cheshire........Heart of the rural community.......I lived there while I studied.........

Gave me a birds eye view of the scummish nature of the "Cheshire set" (him included !!) .

Stiffened my liberal philosophy.......Though I was fairly quiet about it at the time under his roof.....Not that he was there much thankfully..

TopHat, I was eluding to the people who feed the foxes on their plush lawn, and hope to befriend them with cosseted meals everyday, even lavishing them with better food you'd give your pet dog. They don't know that they are in fact dooming the fox to cancers and other diseases by giving them un-natural processed food full of chemicals.

Trussman66, they're a salty lot those rural hamsters especially farmers who now are not the husbands of the tilled earth anymore, but homogenised food producers with one thing in mind and that is how to screw the country for more money. Not that its their fault, its the way farming has become in the last 50 yrs, and their continuous fight with the Eurocratic knobheads.

But lets think about bio diversity, would we really want a country where there is no natural wild life roaming around. Yes the Badger is cutesy to some people, fine if they want to view it like that, but to me, walking in a forest and seeing a wild badger is far more preferable to meandering around a zoo because that is the only place I'd get to see one. And I would never want to deny my kids the chance of a natural world full of wild things.

Again, have never seen or even heard of this. Certainly not in cities, maybe cossetted home county suburbia (not that may folks or any of our neighbours did though either).

Pretty big bloody leap to go from killing a few thousand vermin to a countryside with no wildlife whatsoever.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:
scummish nature of the "Cheshire set"

I'm from Cheshire.......

Mind the windows Tino. wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:
scummish nature of the "Cheshire set"

I'm from Cheshire.......

I took that for granted....  

TopHat24/7 wrote:Again, have never seen or even heard of this. Certainly not in cities, maybe cossetted home county suburbia (not that may folks or any of our neighbours did though either).

Pretty big bloody leap to go from killing a few thousand vermin to a countryside with no wildlife whatsoever.

Well, its not that big a leap if people think that anything that invades our plush, secure, safe and cosy life is either a weed or vermin, then with the juggernaut that is the housing industry spreading into the green belt every month that passes, its not that much of a leap of the imagination to see a future without wildlife, except rats and mice maybe.

I love the attitude that a few thousand wild animals killed justifies the tag vermin.

Well, well, well.... politics / current affairs has become acceptable on the 606 site again.  Oh goody.   Between this and the thread on Paddy O'Bama's fireside chat with Putin things might be getting interesting again.

As for badgers, well, I'm afraid that in my little neck of the coastline they are already urbanised and doing damage to property with their nocturnal foraging.

A couple of years ago, some people bought up a parcel of land locally known as The Old Priory and applied for planning permission to build on it.  It would have been a formality had the surveyors not found a badger sett on the site.  Long story short:  Planning permission denied.  Badgers must not be touched.

Since that time, as their numbers have grown, these animals have become a persistent nuisance in the area.  They roam at night time, burrowing in gardens, digging up lawns, burrowing under, and occasionally smashing through fences and causing other sorts of damage to gardens and property.

They have been rather quiet of late, with all the bad weather, and most people round here have not been shy in commenting that with a bit of luck they might have been flooded out and moved elsewhere. Some of those whose property has been damaged are hoping that flooding might have resolved the issue more <ahem> "finally".

OK, so the animals are only doing what they do.  They're surviving according to their nature. Fair enough. But they are a nuisance...... and a destructive one at that.  I respect the relevance of their place in the ecosystem, but I am also unhappy when I find the lawn that I work hard to keep greensward ruined and the bottom of my fence panels smashed or burrowed under.

The almost biblical amount of rainfall in this winter may have done us all a favour.   If they've moved on, then fine.  It isn't problem resolution, it's problem relocation, but I'll be happy to let somebody else have the misery of these animals (literally)  on their turf.  I've had my share.   On the other hand, I will shed no tears if the li'l critters have drowned in their sett.

Bearing in mind the weather we've had, that would also be down to nature.

JubbaIsle wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:Again, have never seen or even heard of this.  Certainly not in cities, maybe cossetted home county suburbia (not that may folks or any of our neighbours did though either).

Pretty big bloody leap to go from killing a few thousand vermin to a countryside with no wildlife whatsoever.

Well, its not that big a leap if people think that anything that invades our plush, secure, safe and cosy life is either a weed or vermin, then with the juggernaut that is the housing industry spreading into the green belt every month that passes, its not that much of a leap of the imagination to see a future without wildlife, except rats and mice maybe.

I love the attitude that a few thousand wild animals killed justifies the tag vermin.

Got any evidence of that? Or are you just eulogising again??

We have a massive housing crisis in this country and one of the biggest stumbling blocks (not that I'm necessarily advocating here) is NOT being able to build on green belts.

When I was living in Prestbury..........Some guy down the lane deliberately bought a piece of land in the middle of the Cheshire hunt and refused permission for the hunt to use it.....

He became a pariah and got threats and everything........But he was a hero to me....

Used to love meal times when I mentioned I'd seen him in Town (I hadn't!!  ) ..Just to watch the table explode in all kinds of invective..

Oh those were the days !!  

"eulogising"??

Your spell checker has broken.

Anyway, not going to rise to the bait, we all know the green belt is shrinking relative to brown sites already having commercial buildings on them.

Humans are a nuisance, shall we cull them too ?, digging up pasture land for crops, ruining forests and poisoning the oceans ? or are they something the world/nature has to live with.

JubbaIsle wrote:"eulogising"??

Your spell checker has broken.

Anyway, not going to rise to the bait, we all know the green belt is shrinking relative to brown sites already having commercial buildings on them.

Humans are a nuisance, shall we cull them too ?, digging up pasture land for crops, ruining forests and poisoning the oceans ? or are they something the world/nature has to live with.

We already do. Its called War, apathy, greed, famine etc etc. We should nuke the badgers. Black and white bastards

Simple solution, flawed regarding fallout though.

I'd rather it was nuked than owned by tesco.

JubbaIsle wrote:"eulogising"??

Your spell checker has broken.

Anyway, not going to rise to the bait, we all know the green belt is shrinking relative to brown sites already having commercial buildings on them.

So no, then, you can't back up what you're saying. Just misty-eyed tree-hugging pontification.

TopHat24/7 wrote:

JubbaIsle wrote:"eulogising"??

Your spell checker has broken.

Anyway, not going to rise to the bait, we all know the green belt is shrinking relative to brown sites already having commercial buildings on them.

So no, then, you can't back up what you're saying. Just misty-eyed tree-hugging pontification.

Why you can't just google it is beyond me......


http://www.localgov.co.uk/CPRE-claims-green-belt-is-still-shrinking/29369

http://www.lgcplus.com/green-belts-shrink-despite-prescott-pledge/491951.article

http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2013/sep/05/protecting-green-belt-promise-kept

http://www.countrylife.co.uk/countryside/article/163513/Green-Belt-is-shrinking.html


There.....that took all of 25 secs. and is a very small representation of the facts. Can you back up your opinion ?

I can back up that I don't care...........?

So no, then, you can't back up what you're saying. Just misty-eyed brick-hugging pontification.