Dishing the dirt on badgers

Casey is less interested in badgers' dung pits than I am. Here he's standing beside a row of them all along the left hand side of this green lane which marks the edge of a badger territory. Out of cleanliness they excrete as far away as possible from their living quarters and leave their sloppy droppings exposed as an unmissable signal to other badger clans to keep clear.

My Monday's blip attracted a lot of attention to the policy of culling badgers as a way of controlling bovine TB. Almost everyone who commented came out in favour of badgers and against the cull, which remains one of the government's main strategies for tackling the problem of bTB in cattle, although it has now been shown to be ineffective, inhumane and very expensive. But from an agricultural point of view tuberculosis in cattle is a enormous problem that has to be addressed.

Cattle are tested annually for bTB and any that react positively are destroyed even if apparently healthy (the meat however is not condemned but returned to the food chain.) Movement of the rest of the herd is then restricted, effectively bringing the business of the farm to a standstill until all animals test negative. The result can be devastating for farmers both financially and emotionally, as anyone who listens to The Archers will know. Or see here for some personal accounts of farming families hit by the disease.

As a result of the bTB test around 25000 cows are killed in the UK every year. So why do we put get so agitated about saving the lives of badgers? We seem to respect their quiet tenacity and their invisible nocturnal lives but they are not cuddly animals and are capable of doing damage with their earth works and of killing poultry. They are not an endangered species but they are a protected one, which is why farmers are no longer allowed to destroy them on their own land as used to happen in the past. Perhaps we are in general are so divorced now from life on the land that we are incapable of balancing the welfare of badgers against the well-being of farm livestock and its owners?

There are other strategies for controlling the spread of bTB from badgers to cattle. One is increased biosecurity. Since it appears that only a very small percentage of cattle catch bTB directly from badgers (mostly it is passed from cow to cow), efforts are being stepped up reduce contact between the two species with badger-proof gates, fencing, water troughs and feed stores. Tricky because badgers are nothing if not diggers and can even cause structural damage by undermining buildings.Plus we don't like the idea of cows being coralled rather than allowed to wander freely across the landscape.

There's also the possibility of vaccination against bTB. A vaccine for cattle is being developed but will not be ready for use for several years. There is one for badgers and its use is now the policy adopted by the Welsh Assembly Government following the failure of the culls. The vaccine approach has actually been undergoing trials here in north Pembrokeshire. It's not easy: the badgers have to be trapped overnight in baited cages and the cages visited every morning to administer the vaccine and release the animals. There are thousands of badgers! The operatives require training and the overall cost of the procedure has been estimated as about £600 per badger (still less than the cost of culling...)

I've returned to the bTB/badger controversy (and will again) because it's not as black-and-white as its subject. It's so highly charged that it is impossible to find an impartial voice and there are a multitude of voices if you put 'badgers' and 'TB' into a search engine. It's important to be well informed so I'd recommend doing that before jumping to conclusions.

These dung pits left me musing that badgers themselves make a pretty good job of biosecurity: they clean out their setts regularly, dig fresh ones frequently and ensure that their shit is deposited well away from their homes. No flies on Mr and Mrs Brock!

Thank you to everyone who left sympathetic messages on the demise of our Belly Boy. We are missing him very much, as I know many of you understand.