defra routinely gets things wrong - I seem to remember a well protested experiment some years ago when a colony of badgers was culled because the local dairy herds kept getting TB. Guess what? The herds still got TB even after all the badgers were gone!! . . . . . . . . . BTW - can I make a friendly suggestion to make posts easier to read (especially old'ns like me!!) When you do a really long post - the majority of which have been brilliant reading, I might add - could the posters put in paragraph breaks every so often, just to break up the massive block of text? It would be ever so much appreciated!! Thank you!
11,000 - that is ELEVEN THOUSAND badgers have already been killed in the current cull. More than 30,0000 in recent culls. See: http://www.badgers.org.uk/badgerpages/eurasian-badger-24.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4802108.stm
I have had many a run in with DEFRA during the appalling episode with the foot and mouth outbreak a close relative of mine had every single animal on her farm killed by the Defra people only to be told 24 hrs later that they had made a mistake and been at the wrong farm they did not even apologise.!!!!!!! As for the badgers on my land they were first noticed by someone who was nearby at night they contacted me and i contacted the local badger group after elongated discussions with the group and the local police it was decided by myself that the land and a large portion of the land surrounding the sett would be closed to all people with the exception of the badger group. I stopped short of allowing the placement of an observation hide. Fortunately there was no public right of way near to the sett but some people had used the area to excercise their dogs which is an issue for another time. some people have complained to me about closing the land but its MY land not theirs and the choice is mine. The land surrounding the sett which is in an area that is remote is now only grazed by sheep at certain times of year,no animal larger than sheep use the area this i am told will eliminate any risk of accidental injury to young badgers ie being trodden on. This has cost me money and i have now got secret tv cameras watching the sett placed by the badger group. personally i did have a choice wether or not to take these measures and it was a decision that myself and my wife made without much ado. It is a small inconvienience at worst but it is worthwhile to give the badgers some privacy and security, as regards the right to roam i have been assured by the local police (wife included )that any person found tresspassing can be removed with whatever force is neccessary thankfully this has not happened yet. It is a criminal offence to interfere with badgers or their setts and if a person is found to be near the sett the onus is upon them to explain why they are tresspassing and why they are near the badgers sett. At the time of writing i am led to believe that a medium sized family of brocks or "old men" live at the sett.I have not seen the badgers and i have kept well away i would like to see the badgers and see how many live there, but we decided against this in order to protect the integrity of the secure area around the sett.
Well we got a good old discussion going without it getting too heated. GD I still disagree about rabbits. I have read that rabbits are vermin and therefore you cannot release them. So if anyone finds a lovely flopsy injured bunny and wants to look after it....you have a pet. I cannot believe you cannot make a building fox proof. Its just an animal and not in the same league as humans for intelligence. I have friends who have lost all their hens to foxes but then they have usually admitted - yes they knew the door was a bit dodgey or there was a bit of loose wire. Foxes will kill all, but it is not without reason. I am not so sure I like the phrase "cunning" because that, perhaps without intention, implies applying human characteristics to the fox. we cannot do that, the fox is just an animal and compared to us an innocent. It is subject to instinct and has no control over how it will behave. A fox stuck in a shed full of panicing chickens will go into "kill" mode and kill until everything stops. Put most pet dogs in a pen of panicing sheep and they will do the same - its is impossible for them to do anything else, nature has imbued them with this characteristic. What the fox will then is take the food it needs and then return. It will then try and cache what it cannot eat by burying inorder to provide a food supply for later. As I* said the hunts killed only a very small proportion of foxes and it does not reduce the population. Thye main control is food supply. A fox without a territory will die. Kill a fox and another will simply move in. You could only stop foxes if you wiped out the entire fox population for hundreds of miles and that would be impossible. They are an essential part of our countryside and play an important role in their control of rodent and rabbit populations. We need the predators otherwise pest species become unmanageable. The fox's effect on livestock is overstated. Most chickens are not in reach. If you keep chickens then you have to accept that the fox is a normal part of the environment and you have to take precautions, but if you shoot or kill your local fox you are quite likely to end up with 2 or 3 foxes until one dominates and chases off the others. People in parts of Africa keep cattle where lions are prevalent . They have to take precautions. Its the same principle, just different scale. Lamb predation is the one usually overstated. I have seen foxes with several lamb carcases. In every case I observed the eyes had been removed, showing that the fox was not the first one on the scene. I have aslo read a report in which autopsies were carried out on fox kills. In every case the cause of death was disease, usually pneumonia. Like the wild cat of Scotland the fox gets the blame because it is an opportunist that will pick up dead livestock. Lamb deaths are usually reduced not by fox hunting but by changes in livestock management. I know several farmers who rear lambs very successfully and will not have foxes hunted or shot on their land. They have a love of nature and an understanding that the fox is an essential part of the ecosystem. It controls the numbers of rodents amd as such helps maintain the quality of the pasture. As a predator its population is controlled not by being preyed upon but by available food, in the same way as the birds of prey are. Some aspects of our native ecosytems are inbalanced. We killed off the wolves and bears and as a result have no natural controol of deer populations. People have to control deer poipulations but we cannot do it as efficiently as nature di with predators. as a result deer populations have exploded in some parts of the country. I know that the Forestry Commission are having serious problems in the lake District and Scotland. In fact I have heard that , if it were possible, they would have supported the reintroduction of the wolf for this reason.
I agree geoff a good discussion, and full marks to GD, he was out on his own there for quite a while.
spanner in works again folks - Out walking this morning I saw a patch of feathers where a bird had obviously been eaten by fox. Next to it was a collared dove just laying there with its head bitten off, it took me back to the day when I kept poultry (rare breed). At Christmas time the birds would go to bed 3.30pm - 4pm. As they were rare breeds I had them penned of very carefuly to prevent the boys from wondering where they should not have done. One Boxing day we came back just before 3pm to find my prized AND prize winning Buff Orpington Cock with his head bitten off. As to DEFRA - I foolishly commited my 2.5 acre field to the "single Payment " scheme, I dutifully filled in my 264 page form, (and payed for the psychotherapy after doing so) eventually I was paid �£19 - which was actually �£13.23 more than what I expected. This year the great volume came for me to fill in again (and it actually came before I had received any payment for the last year) I turned to the last page, signed it and put a note in with it saying that my circumstances had not changed and please could they "ditto" last years form.
Well I'm sorry about your fox problems Waco. Can you explain to a townie what the defra single payment scheme is, and can I claim it for my allotment.
Ah Pete I wish I could explaine the single payment scheme, but I don't think even the government can - they just sacked the guy that was in charge of it all! Seriously though, all the farm subsidies have been s****ped, you just say how much land you own/rent and the government give you a one off payment per year - YES PETE I KNOW - why should they give you anything!!! No you can't claim it for your allotment, you had to fill in forms last year or not at all, thats why I did it incase we sold the field, I tell you I really earned my �£19 it took me days to fill the stupid wretched forms in! As to the poultry, its a long time since I kept any, I was just trying to point out that it is harder than you think to keep the fox out - and by the way, 10 years ago these birds were selling at �£50 each, I felt very humble when I took the money and at the time farmers were only getting �£5 per sheep - oh the ways of the world!
So I assume that by filling in the forms the field then becomes worth more money if you sell it. Now this is not a trick question (for want of a better way of putting it), but as you say, why do they pay you for it? Presumably if you own hundreds of acres, you can claim quite a sum. Who paid the �£50 for the cock then?
As to selling the field yes you are right that was why I went to the bother of doing it. As to the trick question, well I did say "spanner in works" ...... Long subject - here goes in breif - prior to this one off payment, farmers got subsidies for what crop they grew - every wondered why the countryside goes from blue to yellow, its because one year oil seed rape is subsidised, and the next flax, and farmers plant the crop they feel will attract the heaviest subsidies (well some of them do) Why should they be subsidised - a topic and a half in itself! Its getting late pete, but I feel the government would do better (which ever government) if they subsidised skilled people to take on apprentices rather than........ Aaahhhhh BIG CAN OF WORMS!
I know its a big can of worms, and everone has a differing point of view, subsidies always have been, Europe cant make its mind up. So you have to be putting the land to some agricultural use in order to get this money, I assume.
NO - that's the sick bit about it all! consider the term "set aside" this translated means you do f*** all with the land and get paid for it! but its not so simple, some farmers I know used "set aside" responsible, other didn't - I am sure there will be farmers only too willing to argue their case for subsidies, I just have not heard any convincing ones.
GD Good to see you are looking after your badgers. Would have thought you would have a good reason to close your land to people exercising their dogs. Dogs and sheep = toxicara and I don't think enough people worm their dogs regularly enough. When you consider that most parks are contaminated I would think any sheep farmer would have good reason to close land that does not have a footpath over it. After all its just like your back garden. I think your are lucky with your police. A local landowner round here, who I don't particularly like but that is incidental, has trouble with scrambler bikes. When I reported that they were on his land the police did not want to know - said it was a private issue btween him and the trespassers. When i pointed out that they had had to drive over public open space to get to it I was asked if I had seen them do it and if I had then they did not think I would want to appear in court as a witness would I? Case of the police not being arsed I think. I cannot imagine badgers getting trod on by big animals. I once took schoolkids badger watching to a local sett. Badgers weren't too bothered by people. I remember they came steaming up out of the hollow and nearly ran over us. Instead of going underground they just backed off. A herd of bullocks came up the field and I remeber seeing the kids running for the fence, with the badger family close behind. The badgers were as frightened of the cattle as the schoolkids were!
We are lucky to have a wildlife officer here but one police officer i spoke to naievely thought that as the badgers were on private land no one would trespass to do them harm.The sett as far as i know is relatively new and it thought if it was left in as much seclusion as possible it would be beneficial for the badgers, i admit that i know nothing at all about them so i went along with the recommendations of the Lancaster badger group.On the subject of the single payment a recently completed survey here has found that a mere 19% of farms in the county which keep stock would have made a profit without the subsidy basically any stock holding farm needs about 100k per annum to survive,these are accountants figures not mine,countryside stewardship and diversify is what farms must do and thats what the single payment is for incidently french farmers are still getting full subsidies where British farms aren't, most dairy herds are tied into a deal with a supermarket.
