This is going to be a sort of "on the hop" rant. A little rough and ready but it needs to be gotten off my chest.
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Louise Shillington made a good point. There could be a very good reason why badgers are not subject to post mortems.
Imagine you PM 20 badgers killed in a cull zone. No TB. Okay, fluke and more specimens needed. So 30 badger...40 badgers...no TB. You then have to look at those figures and question the alleged badger spreading of TB.
A way around this -no post mortems on health and safety issues so how are they testing for TB? Bloods? In which case I think most of us will recall a certain alpaca that was dragged off and killed for having TB...but didn't.
I also checked and, considering badgers have been post mortemed for a few centuries there are no reports of the pathologists, biologists etc contracting TB.
Why haven't/didn't they?
Above: one example of the hundreds of thousands of badgers killed and then processed and mounted by taxidermists over the last three centuries -why is TB not rife amongst taxidermists?
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Another point made: are hunt hounds tested for TB? Because a good few do get TB and this was something talked about years ago. However, the rich protect the rich and any question of hounds with TB are fobbed off.
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Taxidermists deal with badgers all of the time and the processing would surely mean a good few taxidermists have TB -it should be rife. Asking around no one has heard of a fellow taxidermist contractrng TB. Odd? There have been many thousands of British badgers killed and mounted therefore, statistically, you would expect to see some instances of TB amongst taxidermists.
There is TB in the UK but this has nothing to do with badgers but living conditions and other factors. No taxidermists -if I am wrong please correct me.
Should it not be made illegal for taxidermists to handle dead badgers? A criminal offence as it could spread the disease? Nope. Move on no questions to answer here.
A good few years back British cows were sent to Africa. These cows would have had all sorts of tests and documentation to declare them healthy. They got to Africa and...some came down with TB. So where were the badgers?
Eventually someone offered a suggestion that some African animal spread the TB and subject closed. However the subject of TB hosts and how they are dealt with in Africa is a complicated one. But the cows sent to Africa were kept in very sanitary conditions to prevent disease. The unrecognised (officially) belief for years is that the cattle had TB to start with yet came from badger free areas.
Vaccination of cattle? Well that is full of problems but the point is that we know fox hounds have TB and that can spread around but are we going to shoot all the hounds where TB is suspected? The British public would be outraged even if they were not that bothered about foxes being ripped apart, badgers being culled or when foot and mouth cause thousands of cattle to be killed and there were huge pyres of cattle burning.
Above: 2001 foot and mouth outbreak -mass burning of cattle
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We are supposed to be a nation of animal ;lovers but it seems only if its something we like. People sit back and say "nothing that we can do. Out of our hands we aren't the experts" well, forget Change.org and donating money to its "work" (of seemingly collecting contributions because its petitions seem to achieve bugger all) you have a voice. You have a vote. Pester your MP. Spam DEFRA. Then spam DEFRA again. Spam government ministers. Become the biggest pain in the ass since that question of whether the PM attended that party he attended or not.
Chris Packham and Brian May -both high profile and anti-cull
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Demonstrations, public events -get the big names there because the only way things are going to be changed is if YOU kick and shout about it.
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