28th April 2006

 
A farmer whose cattle were the first in Britain to be linked to the theory that bovine tuberculosis comes from badgers has rubbished the connection – and declared his land a "no-kill zone".

Photo: No cull on my land: Gloucestershire farmer Len Ballinger (Picture by Adrian Sherratt)

 
This page in addition to these revelations from Gloucestershire farmer Len Ballinger also contains links to further information and three articles: "Who wants this cull?", "Welcome to ground zero in  the battle for Britain's badgers" and "Bovine TB - the vital statistics".

"I'm standing up for Brock - they've been before and wiped out every badger, yet the disease has continued. Brock's a soft target and he's clearly no more than a bystander in this growing problem of bovine TB."

Len grazed beef cattle on land adjoining Alderley Farm near Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire when, back in 1971, Ministry of Agriculture vets investigating positive TB readings in his cattle discovered a dead badger. Subsequent tests detected TB and spawned the theory that cattle might catch the disease from badgers.

 
Copyright photo: Badger by Tony Evans Nature Picture Library reproduced with permission from www.stopwaronbadgers.org

But 35 years later and with £43m spent on an extensive badger-culling trail, no scientific evidence has successfully proved the link. Indeed, the government's own scientists have now indicated that the way to address the disease is to reapply the strict TB testing and movement controls in cattle which were disrupted by the recent BSE and foot and mouth epidemics. Nevertheless, to assuage hardline anti-badger factions in the National Farmers Union and the Countryside Alliance, which represents anti-badger, shooting interests, the cull is likely to be sanctioned.

Len is adamant that badgers are being scapegoated: "My own suspicion even in 1971 was that intensification was to blame. My cattle grazed on land next to a highly intensive dairy unit, where the cows were kept indoors permanently and the slurry was pumped out onto surrounding fields. I was convinced my own cattle had caught the TB via that route - and in all likelihood, so had the badger - they love rooting through cattle manure for beetles and worms."

Mr Ballinger joins a growing list of farmers refusing to participate in the cull. In Devon, dairy farmers David and Patsy Mallet, who have a herd of 80 milkers on 200 acres of Dartmoor, say the move will wreak untold damage on consumer relations: "This isn’t a case of sentimentality over fluffy badgers," says David, "Something is deeply wrong with our agriculture if we are resorting to wiping out whole species. If farmers allow this, there will be a massive public backlash – basically, consumers will think ‘stuff you’!"

Badger expert Martin Hancox, who sat on the government's Badgers and Bovine TB panel, says any cull would be pointless: "Tuberculosis in cattle is caught from other cattle," he says, pointing to the fact that the disease is now appearing in areas of the UK, such as Cumbria, which had been TB-free for 10 years – and sometimes even longer. "The badgers were there all the time, so are they supposed to have sat around for a decade and then one day decided to infect cows?" he says.

"Since the chaos inflicted on the industry by BSE and then Foot and Mouth, TB controls and movement restrictions on cattle, which controlled the disease so well in the past - with no killing of badgers - have become a farce. Badgers don’t travel up the M5, but cattle do. The answer is staring everybody in the face, but the fixation with badgers is blinding them to it."

Philip Booth, a Stroud District Green party spokesperson who helped with publicity on Len's stand and coordinated the Gloucestershire Green party's submission to the Defra inquiry, said: "The Green party are fully opposed to a cull - there is just no scientific evidence to support one. There is now an early-day motion against the cull (EDM1788) and it is great to see it starting to attract cross-party support among MPs."

Read more about the Gloucestershire Green party's position
To find out more about this issue, and what you can also visit:
www.stopwaronbadgers.org.

Who wants this cull? Not the government’s scientists…

In its response on March 10 to the government’s consultation for a proposed badger cull, the government’s own Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB (ISG) stated:

"Farmers and their advisors must recognise that bovine TB is an infectious disease of cattle and that cattle-to-cattle transmission of M. bovis makes a significant contribution to the maintenance and geographical spread of the disease."

The ISG went on to state: "Enhanced on-farm biosecurity has been emphasised by others, including the British Veterinary Association. Such measures would include rigid adherence to a programme of diagnostic testing, eliminating or minimising contact with neighbouring herds, consideration of restocking policies and the source of purchased animals, pre-movement testing and the isolation of purchased stock, followed by post-movement testing before introducing animals into a herd. Wildlife factors would include all measures that can be applied on-farm to reduce or avoid badger/cattle contact."

Further findings cast serious doubt over the logic of a cull: "It is the view of the ISG that to provide even a modest reduction in the incidence of cattle herd breakdowns, a "general cull" strategy would require systematic, coordinated and sustained culling over an extended period of time with specialist involvement. The logistical difficulties to overcome would be enormous and the cost is very likely to exceed the benefits. Issues of sustainability – in the widest sense – would need to be considered."

"Furthermore, the importance of economic considerations should have been discussed and incorporated along with other issues into the core of the consultation document, rather than being relegated to a somewhat disconnected annex."

They continue: "A key deficiency is that the cost-benefit analyses presented take no account of the negative effects of culling on herd breakdowns that the scientific evidence predicts will have an impact on any of the proposed culling strategies. The effect of this omission is to nullify the conclusions drawn for the only option – licensed culling by individuals/groups."

The ISG’s reply also casts doubts on the moral acceptability of the proposed cull: "The ISG notes the minimal attention given to welfare and conservation considerations in the culling options proposed. In planning the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, the ISG was made acutely aware of the public sensitivities over animal welfare and conservation, and recognises that if large scale badger culling were to be acceptable to society as a means of cattle disease control, there had to be explicit provisions to deal with these concerns in order to ensure the sustainability of this approach. The consultation document is largely silent on these matters."

There was some praise for the document though, for its work in "recognising the crucial importance of limiting cattle to cattle transmission". The ISG stated it regards "pre-movement testing as an important new step to take in achieving better control of the disease in cattle. Studies on the pathogenesis and epidemiology of the disease in cattle highlight a number of other cattle-based control measures that would, if adopted, reduce the incidence of TB in cattle whether or not badgers are culled. For example, Defra should consider improved application and strategic use of available diagnostic tests and heightened disease surveillance."

These clearly cautious comments by the government’s own scientists underlined remarks made in their conclusions from the Krebs trial made in January 2005, when they said that "the widespread elimination of badgers from large tracts of the countryside would not be politically or socially acceptable".

For media interviews and further information, contact:
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Welcome to ground zero in the battle for Britain’s badgers

A report by Simon Hacker (permission granted for use on this website)

The farmer at the heart of the bovine TB whodunnit says badgers have been fitted up by an industry looking for excuses

It looks like the perfect pastoral scene. The Cotswold Way weaves through the woodland and out across the meadows, bounding an area once voted by readers of Country Life magazine as Britain’s Most Beautiful Valley.

But this Gloucestershire postcard could soon be ground zero in a heated battle for the future of one of Britain’s best-loved wild mammals.

At any time now, an announcement is expected from the government for a go-ahead with the widespread execution of Britain’s estimated population of 500,000 badgers. They stand accused of spreading TB in cattle, but after three decades of research, culminating in the £43m Krebs trial, no hard evidence of the link exists. Even the government's own scientists, who were instructed to assume the badgers' involvement, have clearly said that killing badgers could actually make the disease in cattle worse.
Nevertheless, with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) having held a muted public consultation that closed on March 10, the word in the local pubs is that it’s all over bar the issuing of licences to kill.

For some hardline farmers, championed by the National Farmers' Union, the cull can’t come quickly enough, but one farmer here in Gloucestershire is saying no. You might think such dissent unsurprising, but this is the very farmer who witnessed the start of this labyrinthine story, when the first badger infected with TB was detected, in this precise spot.

Len Ballinger has lived and farmed the land around Alderley in Gloucestershire since the 1950s. In 1971, veterinary officers for the (then) Ministry of Agriculture (MAFF) analysed a dead badger found on land at Alderley Farm where, as a tenant, he had a herd of around 250 beef cattle.

"I remember we’d had some positive results on TB tests among the cattle and the MAFF vets were looking into the theory of a possible outside source for this infection," he recalls.

When the dead badger’s post-mortem results indicated TB infection, the findings spawned the theory that badgers could transmit the TB to cattle.

"I was puzzled," says Len. "Wildlife and livestock had been existing happily side by side for hundreds of years, so this original case seemed odd to me – and another source for the infection looked plausible," he adds.

Alderley Farm, at the time, was at the forefront of modern dairy farming techniques. To meet the growing pressures of increased yields, the farm’s dairy herd was enclosed in a unit resembling a giant turntable. Via a central revolving hub, the herd were alternately milked and fed, being kept indoors all day, every day.

"All of the slurry from this intensified unit was piped out and spread onto the surrounding land, where my cattle grazed. And so intensive was the operation that the land struggled to absorb it – so you didn’t need to be Einstein to suspect a connection… Before my cattle were on this land, where intensification was coming in, I’d had no TB reactors at all. Then I suddenly did. Sadly though, all the MAFF scientists were interested in was proving a link to the badgers. "

Len isn’t the only farmer with no stomach for the cull. A hundred miles south west, David and Patsy Mallett, who have a herd of 80 milkers on a 200-acre farm on Dartmoor, say they, too, will be shutting their gates to any Defra-licensed exterminators.

"This isn’t a case of sentimentality over fluffy badgers. Something is deeply wrong with our agriculture if we are resorting to wiping out whole species here – over an area twice the size of greater London. We think that if farmers allow this, there will be a massive public backlash – basically, consumers will think ‘stuff you’!"

The Malletts believe both pre- and post-movement testing of cattle is the crucial issue, but although the government has just reintroduced pre-movement testing, it is still "dragging its heels".

Back in Gloucestershire, Len predicts that if the government announces a widespread cull – anticipated for some time soon after the local elections on May 5 – the NFU faces an uphill task keeping farmers in line.

"The NFU wants to look macho and is searching around for excuses for this mess. One thing is certain: we will not be allowing anyone to kill badgers here. They’re a soft target, while the true reason is staring us in the face – intensification of diary and cattle farming, with pressure for more and more yields. We've lost sight of the importance of good basic husbandry for the sake of surviving squeezed profit margins."

Mr Ballinger’s views are underlined by Martin Hancox, zoologist and former member of the parliamentary Badgers and Bovine TB panel. Tuberculosis in cattle is caught from other cattle, he says, pointing to the fact that the disease is now appearing in areas of the UK, such as Cumbria, which had been TB-free for 10 years – and sometimes even longer.

"The badgers were there all the time, so are they supposed to have sat around for a decade and then one day decided to infect cows? Since the chaos inflicted on the industry by BSE and then Foot and Mouth, TB controls and movement restrictions on cattle, which controlled the disease so well in the past - with no killing of badgers -have become a farce. Badgers don’t travel up the M5, but cattle do."

And at the Ballinger farmhouse, the ‘keep out’ signs are already being prepared.

"We’re going to stand up for Brock," says Len. "DEFRA has been here before, at a time when I had more badgers than livestock – they used cyanide gas to wipe them all out, but the problem didn’t go away. It’s simply the wrong target. Those badgers that do have TB have most likely caught it from the cattle as they habitually root through their dung in search of beetles. I’m not disputing that badgers can get TB, but this is the question – who gave it to who? If it’s badgers today, what bit of our wildlife will they want to wipe out tomorrow?"

Judging by the strong resolve the threat of the cull is generating, perhaps the next few months will show that Britain’s first identified TB-infected badger didn’t die for nothing, after all.

An early-day motion against the cull (EDM1788) is attracting cross-party support among MPs. To find out more about this issue, and what you can do, visit www.stopwaronbadgers.org.

Bovine TB – the vital statistics

On December 12th, 2005, MP Ben Bradshaw, Minister for Nature, Conservation and Fisheries, told the House of Commons that cattle-to-cattle transmission of bovine TB is responsible for up to 80% of bovine TB [1]. Hard evidence to implicate badgers with the remaining 20% remains non-existent.

By coincidence, Defra's own figures show that 80% of 21,545 badgers killed and examined via post mortem in previous TB badger 'removals' were not infected with TB.

Annual testing of cattle in the past virtually eradicated the disease in the UK, without the finger pointed at a single badger. Only when testing was relaxed did the disease begin to take hold and rocket out of control.

In 2002 19,792 bTB reactors (cattle that gave a positive tuberculin skin test result) were slaughtered. During the Foot and Mouth outbreak, 4,189,000 animals (including 590,000 cattle) were slaughtered [2]. In addition, 90,000 cattle are culled annually due to mastitis, 31,000 due to lameness and 125,000 due to infertility [3].

SOURCES
1 Hansard, column 1589W 12 Dec 2005.
2 INFBG (2003). Bovine TB in cattle. NFBG briefing paper. www.nfbg.org.uk
3 Sibley, R. (2003). Rethink health strategies. Farmers Weekly. February 28th 2003

More information is available from: www.stopwaronbadgers.org