Monday, 23 January 2012
Bovine TB and Mr Brock.
There is no arguing that the number of cattle slaughtered as a result of testing positive for bovine TB has increased dramatically from under a thousand head in 1988 to something in the region of 40000 head today. This is a shocking statistic but just how much of a human health threat is bovine TB and is this devastation of the national herd really necessary? How much is the badger to blame and will a cull really help? Why is the disease on the increase anyway? If informed debate rather than knee-jerk reaction is your bag there is an excellent site here. The badger cull will be an emotive issue and in true British fashion we will no doubt be more concerned about this than the increasing impoverishment of whole sections the population. Let this concern at least be tempered by a bit of knowledge.
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2 comments:
Thanks for that link. There was a recent article in The Independent blaming badgers for the decline in hedgehogs. The writer seemed quite proud, in a Bill O'Reilly kind of way, that his conclusion was based on correlation of rising and falling populations in badgers and hedgehogs respectively, rather than any kind of causal link.
Replace the cattle with goats. Problem solved. I think.
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