Normally I would not comment on domestic policy in the U.K., but the Brits are practically begging me to do it. This picture and text are from British Are Freaking Out Over Government Plans To Shoot 100,000 Badgers.
Badgers have long enjoyed a somewhat special status in the UK — "Badger-baiting" was banned in 1835, and the creatures are protected by their own law. The nocturnal mammals of the weasel family have also appeared numerous times in popular culture, becoming a familiar face to the nation's children in particular.However, it looks a lot like that special status is about to end.
Under new government plans, up to 100,000 badgers in England will die in a controversial "badger cull", shot dead by professional marksmen. The cull is scheduled to start as a pilot scheme in the Advocates say the cull is needed for the health of England's cattle.
It's long been known that badgers can carry the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) which can cause Bovine tuberculosis (TB) in cattle — a serious and costly problem for the England's cattle industry. Just last year 25,000 cattle were killed in England due to the disease, and the problem is said to have cost the British taxpayer £500 million ($800 million).
Yes, a serious and costly problem for England's cattle industry. Cleary, various things (words, money, posh pleasure trips, blow-jobs) have been exchanged between cattle raisers and Britain's conservative government, which can always be counted on to meet the special needs of U.K. citizens with special needs. That group certainly includes beef growers.
Following that study, in 2008 the British government denied the cattle industries demands for a cull. It was only in 2010 when the incoming Conservative government made a cull their policy that the plan began to look like a reality, and the plans became reality when the government defeated an appeal by the Badger Trust earlier this year.
But what study are we referring to? Could it be a study showing that killing culling badgers doesn't make much difference in the rate of bovine tuberculosis?
I have spent a lot of time in the last few days trying to get to grips with the apparently simple question: does the scientific evidence support the Government's proposed cull of badgers as a way of controlling TB in cattle?
... With badgers and TB, science seems to have no clear-cut answers.
There was a trial of culling, which started in 1999 and has been analysed up to 2010.
The figure that comes out of that, is that IF culling is done over a wide area, IF it's done for four years and IF 70% of the badgers are killed, it will reduce TB in cattle by around 16%.
That is what science tells us. The rest is politics. The Government says, yes it is worth it.
In areas with high infection rates, that could make a big difference. And existing control methods won't have the same effect.
But eminent scientists, like Lord John Krebs, who instituted the trial and used to run the Food Standards Agency, says 16% is not worth it.
Worth it? Or not worth it? That is the question.
Worth it, or not worth it, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler for the badger to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to live undisturbed amongst a sea of troubles...For in that sleep of death what dreams may come to badgers,
When they have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so short a life.
As we reflect on the badger cull, another quotation from England's own William Shakespeare comes to mind.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
What is this quintessence of dust? I suggest we ask a badger.
Man used to set himself apart from other animals, arguing that we had a soul/tool-making abilities/emotions/language that other species did not have.
We were wrong in those respects but correct in another way. We have decided to set ourselves apart by removing ourselves from the global web of life that every other species participates in.
Every other species has enough intelligence to remain part of this web.
Mankind has enough intelligence to do the opposite.
This is our downfall.
Posted by: clyde | 10/19/2012 at 10:16 AM