Badger cull set to start on 1st June 2013

The day I hoped would never come is about to dawn. As from tomorrow, marksmen will be allowed to shoot badgers in parts of Somerset of Gloucestershire.

I live too far away to be able to try and sabotage this disgusing and frankly pointless task, but any Dogsey member who lives in these parts I would urge you to do whatever you can with peaceful and law abiding methods to prevent these badgers being shot. On Radio 4's This Morning programme, they commented on the fact that some protestors would be trying to find out those areas where the shooters will be on any one night, and try and frighten off the badgers with noise and flashing lights.

I really hope they do not use dogs to flush them out of their setts - the dogs could get seriously injured or killed by the badgers, aside from the fact that it is illegal to "hunt" with dogs.

I would think a very good way of distracting the marksmen themselves would be to dazzle them with bright lights.

Any Dogsey volunteers?

Oh my god you actually wrote that. How bloody dangerous!! Really cannot comprehend such stupidity for ANY reason.

What's their argument for allowing it in parts of Somerset?

That clearly shows which camp YOU have your feet firmly in then - I could have guessed

Nothing dangerous at all at PREVENTING a marksman being able to pull the trigger. After all, if he is a professional marksman - which I sincerely hope they would be, else there are going to be a lot of seriously injured badgers roaming around, something I would not wish to contemplate if only for the safely to the general public and their dogs - then he would not pull the trigger at all if:-

a) there were people in the area demonstrating against the cull

b) he couldn't see because of the light blinding him

TB is spreading up from the West country into the rest of the UK – these areas have a big TB problem in their dairy herds. TB is, without any doubt in my mind, being spread by badgers. It is a disease that is carried by the badgers but does not cause them any harm. However, the way to deal with the problem to my mind is not through culling – simply because it won’t work. You cannot possibly ensure that you have killed every single last badger in a given area. Therefore, the survivors of the cull will spread out into neighbouring areas, terrified by what they have encountered, and thus spread the disease. It is also spread by other animals as well of course, birds included, but presumably even daft DEFRA would not agree to a cull of every single species of animal!

Solution lies in vaccinating the badgers – very difficult, dangerous and of course there will always be badgers that you have missed, thus losing any advantage you have gained. Or, you could breed healthy cattle which have the normal resistance to TB. Just like the badgers and all other wild animals, the dairy cattle could be less inbred so that they have healthier immune systems and thus would not become infected with TB – something that doesn’t harm them, but of course infects their milk with TB – which then gets carried to us humans who drink the milk.

No less an eminent scientist than Lord Krebs (son of the Krebs of "Krebs Cycle") has decried the culling of badgers - but why should DEFRA take any notice of such an eminent personage?

A few people demonstrating is not going to change anything the Government have decided to do. Common sense says that any area that firearms are being used will be cordoned off.
If you are expecting members to stand and shine torches while the marksmen are taking aim - you'll probably get arrested and at worse the kill will not be clean.

Thankyou Gnasher for explaining.

In years to come when badgers are endangered or even extinct they will look back on this pointless cull in horror

You could say that about anything. We are so lucky in this country – we live in a democracy where we CAN demonstrate without fear of recrimination. If we are all apathetic, and say what you have just said, then indeed nothing will change. The government are more than aware about the high feelings on both sides of the badger debate, and extraordinarily they have chosen to side with DEFRA and ignore Lord Krebs sound scientific advice. At vast expense they commissioned a study, and then chose to ignore it effectively. Of course we should demonstrate against such wastage, apart from anything else!!

No, I am not expecting badger supporters to stand and shine torches whilst the marksmen take aim – are you crazy? Demonstrators will not be allowed by the police to be anywhere near the guns. This would have to be done at a distance – you can get extremely high powered torches now which will show very strong beams over a large distance. I know because I have one.

The population is thankfully reasonably high - I have high hopes that commonsense will prevail and when the cull is seen to be a failure then perhaps a more scientific approach will be taken. A good start would be to breed dairy cows with a decent immune system!