Thursday, July 14, 2011

To Cull or Not to Cull?

The government is due to make a decision within the next few days on whether to allow farmers to shoot badgers on sight in a bid to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis. I seriously doubt this will solve the problem of the continuing spread of bovine TB.
The disease is a serious concern for farmers and I do feel for those that have lost their herds.
But I don't think giving farmers a licence to shoot badgers will help.
What tends to happen when you cull animals in a specific area is that other animals then come in and colonise that area and the pertubation that follows makes it more difficult to control the spread of disease.
It also seems to me that the government is passing the buck onto individual farmers to solve what is a nationwide problem.
Unfortunately I don't know what the solution to the problem is. But I don't think this is it.

2 comments:

  1. i guess it's something that you never really know what would be the best decision...
    would shooting them on sight really solve the problem? probably not...because chances are...they're not going to get ALL of the infected ones!

    how sad....they're beautiful!!

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