TB measures not working

I make no apology for returning to the subject of TB.

Over time, my farming periodicals reported the steady progress of the disease northwards. It has become a problem in Cumbria and reports exist of a breakdown on the Isle of Skye – in TB-free Scotland. It’s little use blaming badgers for that. Physical barriers are in place. I don’t expect badgers fancy swimming across the sea and I suspect they would be seen crossing the bridge.

Physical barriers

Physical barriers work. Years ago, my vet told me he could see TB spreading through his practice area from the south-west. A major trunk road and a main railway line run fairly close to each other through the middle. TB “progress” halted for about two years before it went on further into the area.

Much of the TB debate has centred on the amount of disease in wildlife, in general, and badgers, in particular. This, often vitriolic, debate has, to some degree, obscured the fact whatever we are doing is not working.

Why else would we see this steady movement north? Some time ago, I advocated taking a sort of leap north, to a clear area, and working back down south towards the hot spots. My argument centred on the fact, at present, “we” are just chasing the disease to a clean area – established, probably, at the Scottish border – and we need to work back down through the dense cattle populations of Cumbria.

All the signs are my own area will become a cull area next year and, as I write, I think every one of my neighbours is down with TB. We are due a test soon, with little hope we will pass. If we become a cull area next year, it is proof the disease is moving north and present restrictions are doing nothing to stop it.

Further proof, if it were needed, that what we do doesn’t work, comes from a telephone call from a farmer in the south-west. He tells me he has been under TB restrictions for seven years; not a single animal has been brought on to the farm. He also told me, although he only had one reactor at the last test, the test before that found 20. What he was telling me was seven years of testing and restrictions had not improved the situation one bit – further proof things are not working.

But there were also things I could work out for myself. In seven years he had probably had more than 40 herd TB tests, and what had they achieved? Nothing. Clear tests were within that 40, but he never had clear consecutive tests. He didn’t tell me what he did with his bull calves. He had to breed all his cows to a dairy bull to try to keep numbers up. Even if he used sexed semen, in seven years that would be a lot of bull calves. He had probably euthanised them.

Euthanasia

Euthanised is a benign sort of word – it is commonly used instead of shooting, which is what it means. I am yet to meet a farmer who enjoys shooting young, healthy animals – that is not why we became farmers. I’ve never, and don’t intend to, shoot one myself. But I am honest enough to admit, over the years, I’ve had about 10 little black crossbred bull calves worth less than a tenner at market. Rather than put them through that ordeal, I took them to the kennels so the huntsman could shoot them.

I had calves at market and saw a few thin, extreme Holstein bull calves making very little money. They were almost certainly shot, so the vendors were doing the same as me – they didn’t want to shoot them themselves, so they let someone else do it. Call it abdication or passing the buck, but all meat eaters do it. They wouldn’t want to be a slaughter man at an abattoir, but are quite happy for someone else to do it.

I’ve read two reports that said, in areas where TB is endemic, 50% of the problem is down to badgers, in particular, and wildlife, in general. I’m a bit of a sceptic about these sorts of figures being bandied about. How on earth do they obtain reliable figures about a nocturnal, reclusive animal like a badger? The sceptic in me thinks an element of guesswork is involved – “a finger in the wind” sort of stuff.

But the inescapable fact remains – even if those figures are wildly inaccurate; even if it’s only 10%, 10% is an element that can’t be ignored if we are to make any progress. I used to think the Defra figure of 25 years to clear the disease up was appalling in its ambition. Today, it looks decidedly optimistic.