Our nations self destruction

Buford T. Justice XIX · 13-02-2017 02:59PM

archer22 wrote: »

What I don't understand is why there is not mandatory vaccination of calves.
I mean if they are all vaccinated they can't get TB..right?.

So then it does not matter if they read positive on this test as it can be taken as false positive in those cases.Or indeed if all are vaccinated then testing is redundant anyhow....or is that the problem!!.

Atm, there is no effective vaccine and even if there was, it may not be cost effective to treat the national herd with it. Plus, for beef or cattle to be exported they must meet export certificate requirements of being certified free from TB.

And even if the herd was vaccinated, there is still the possibility of the vaccination being overcome on a small number of animals exposed to a large dose of TB so they would have TB when killed/exported despite being supposedly certified free from TB.

On badgers and TB control, people may google the East Offaly Badger Project where the Dept. of Agriculture carried out a controlled cull of badgers in an area with endemic TB outbreaks and totally cleared TB out of the area.

Edit: http://www.bovinetb.info/docs/j_griffin.pdf

RobertKK · 13-02-2017 03:11PM

arkrow wrote: »

Are farmers in on it aswell (gain somehow) or why do they let this carry on?

Farmers have to pay for the test unless the test is done by the department of agriculture, or if the herd fail to past the test or if there is an inconclusive, but pay if then clear.

It cost farmers a lot of money, and compensation when you lose an animal doesn't cover the hardshio and cost of holding extra animals, feed over the winter, not having enough housing for extra animals.
It cost me a lot in the past, and there is nothing one can do as farmers are basically semi private workers for the department of agriculture at the end of the day, as farmers have to do as told by the department of agriculture.

RobertKK · 13-02-2017 03:17PM

http://www.kilkennypeople.ie/news/home/233542/kilkenny-research-project-likely-to-end-controversial-practice-of-culling-killing-badgers-to-eradicate-bovine-tb.html

I think this was done on the western side of the Nore in Kilkenny.

The highly controversial practice of killing (culling) badgers to stop the spread of bovine Tuberculosis is likely be coming to at an end.

This follows the publication of the results of a scientific research project carried out exclusively in County Kilkenny where an oral vaccine was administered to badgers, to investigate its impact against bovine tuberculosis in the large scale field trial.

Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed said the results of the trial were very positive and demonstrated that the oral vaccination of badgers had a significant protective effect in badgers under natural conditions.

Importantly, he said it was the Department's ambition to deploy a full badger vaccination strategy as part of the Bovine TB eradication programme provided that the vaccination of badgers delivers an outcome equivalent to the current badger removal strategy.

Which it is presumed means no more killing of the nocturnal animals.

“The findings confirmed the results of earlier experimental vaccine challenge studies where BCG vaccine was delivered to captive badgers by a variety of routes, including oral inoculation.

“This highlights the significant protective effect of oral BCG vaccination in badgers under natural conditions.

“It is also consistent with the results of other oral vaccination studies in cattle, deer and wild boar,” Minister Creed pointed out.

However, he emphasised that the vaccine trial related to the protective effect of vaccination against TB in badgers and did not provide any direct evidence of the protective effect of badger vaccination in relation to TB in cattle.

He said further trials are being conducted in six separate locations throughout the country, involving the vaccination by intramuscular injection, of several hundred badgers over 3 to 4 years, with continuous monitoring of the cattle population to assess the impact of the vaccine on the incidence of the disease in the cattle population.

He added that the outcome of these field trials, the initial results of which are due in 2018, would determine whether the vaccination of badgers delivers an outcome equivalent to the current badger removal strategy

archer22 · 13-02-2017 03:36PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Atm, there is no effective vaccine and even if there was, it may not be cost effective to treat the national herd with it. Plus, for beef or cattle to be exported they must meet export certificate requirements of being certified free from TB.

And even if the herd was vaccinated, there is still the possibility of the vaccination being overcome on a small number of animals exposed to a large dose of TB so they would have TB when killed/exported despite being supposedly certified free from TB.

On badgers and TB control, people may google the East Offaly Badger Project where the Dept. of Agriculture carried out a controlled cull of badgers in an area with endemic TB outbreaks and totally cleared TB out of the area.

Edit: http://www.bovinetb.info/docs/j_griffin.pdf

Ok but frankly I would remain sceptical of any of those DOA claims....all we can really say is the TB outbreaks ended there.
Anyhow you would think if so many Badgers had TB they would die out from that and a cull would be superfluous.
Badgers evict all sick members from their setts to limit disease outbreaks.

Anyhow the Badger killing cannot continue 100,000 killed and only an estimated 60,000 left, which might seem like a reasonable lot, but when you consider its spread over 26 counties.And its getting to a level where genetic diversity is being impacted and some of the surviving clans are becoming isolated.All this is going to cause a much less healthy population, not a more healthy as is being claimed.

archer22 · 13-02-2017 03:46PM

RobertKK wrote: »

http://www.kilkennypeople.ie/news/home/233542/kilkenny-research-project-likely-to-end-controversial-practice-of-culling-killing-badgers-to-eradicate-bovine-tb.html

I think this was done on the western side of the Nore in Kilkenny.

Sounds good, but the question is what happens if it turns out as some think that its Badgers who get TB from cattle and not the other way around.
So if TB levels in cattle don't fall will the Badgers even though vaccinated still be the scapegoats.
Oh well we just got to wait and see and hope for the best I suppose.

Glenster · 13-02-2017 03:50PM

Johnboner wrote: »

So we have no forests left as 95% of them were cut down to make barrels for guiness as a result we have destroyed animals habitat and have no beautiful forests anymore, grand job... No excuses as even highly populated countries in terms of density such as Germany have a huge amount of forests. Good job for destroying our nature, you just see fields of nothing now everywhere with barely any fauna left.

We've loads of forests.

7% of Ireland is publicly owned forest.

Nonsense thread is nonsense.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 13-02-2017 04:11PM

archer22 wrote: »

Ok but frankly I would remain sceptical of any of those DOA claims....all we can really say is the TB outbreaks ended there.
Anyhow you would think if so many Badgers had TB they would die out from that and a cull would be superfluous.
Badgers evict all sick members from their setts to limit disease outbreaks.

Anyhow the Badger killing cannot continue 100,000 killed and only an estimated 60,000 left, which might seem like a reasonable lot, but when you consider its spread over 26 counties.And its getting to a level where genetic diversity is being impacted and some of the surviving clans are becoming isolated.All this is going to cause a much less healthy population, not a more healthy as is being claimed.

TB is a chronic disease, not an acute one. An infected badger, similar to an infected bovine or indeed an infected human will eventually die of a TB related complication but TB itself will continue to be spread by the infected to those not infected for the duration of their life.

Tbh, it's sad to see how quickly people forget the huge numbers of people infected with TB in the 40s, 50s and 60s in Ireland and the huge numbers of people sent to sanitoriums across the country. One of my grandfathers spent some 7 years of his life in one and eventually died from complications resulting from TB.

While I have no bad feelings about badgers, I'm slightly incredulous about the casual way the threat of TB returning is being treated. People would want to have a chat with their parents/grandparents about what the prognosis of those being sent to sanitoriums was.

Badgers evict all sick members from their setts to limit disease outbreaks. And there you have it, TB infected badgers being expelled from their setts and free to spread TB along whatever route they take before death. And after they are expelled, the sett is as close to a perfect reservoir for incubating and propagating the disease as you can find in nature. The bacterium will remain in the sett for ages and exposes any living in the sett to become infected again and continue the cycle. And once infected, vaccinations aren't going to help those infected.

ClovenHoof · 13-02-2017 04:27PM

Railway sleepers is what finished off the last of the old Irish forests. Most had been cut down by Protestants to stop Catholics from surviving inside them outside the Elizabethan plantation law.

That is not an urban myth. The main destruction of Irish forests was sectarianism and Gaelic cultural genocide.

The Irish were a people of the forests and woods. We had to be rooted out.

archer22 · 13-02-2017 04:33PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

TB is a chronic disease, not an acute one. An infected badger, similar to an infected bovine or indeed an infected human will eventually die of a TB related complication but TB itself will continue to be spread by the infected to those not infected for the duration of their life.

Tbh, it's sad to see how quickly people forget the huge numbers of people infected with TB in the 40s, 50s and 60s in Ireland and the huge numbers of people sent to sanitoriums across the country. One of my grandfathers spent some 7 years of his life in one and eventually died from complications resulting from TB.

While I have no bad feelings about badgers, I'm slightly incredulous about the casual way the threat of TB returning is being treated. People would want to have a chat with their parents/grandparents about what the prognosis of those being sent to sanitoriums was.

Badgers evict all sick members from their setts to limit disease outbreaks. And there you have it, TB infected badgers being expelled from their setts and free to spread TB along whatever route they take before death. And after they are expelled, the sett is as close to a perfect reservoir for incubating and propagating the disease as you can find in nature. The bacterium will remain in the sett for ages and exposes any living in the sett to become infected again and continue the cycle. And once infected, vaccinations aren't going to help those infected.

Thing is though a sick evicted Badger is one you will see walking around aimlessly in the middle of the day (and his illness might not even be TB)
I am 54 years old and live in a rural area...also own a small farm myself.And I can say that I have only once in those 54 years seen a Badger in the middle of the daytime.
This suggests to me that sick Badgers are a very rare event...if the figures were anything like the alleged numbers having TB we should be tripping over Badgers all day long.

FrancieBrady · 13-02-2017 04:44PM

'Forests, you say? Hmmmmmmm'.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 13-02-2017 08:48PM

archer22 wrote: »

Thing is though a sick evicted Badger is one you will see walking around aimlessly in the middle of the day (and his illness might not even be TB)
I am 54 years old and live in a rural area...also own a small farm myself.And I can say that I have only once in those 54 years seen a Badger in the middle of the daytime.
This suggests to me that sick Badgers are a very rare event...if the figures were anything like the alleged numbers having TB we should be tripping over Badgers all day long.

Like humans, badgers can have and transmit the disease without showing up as sick. Look at any of the recent TB scares where people with 'ordinary' TB or those with multi drug resistant strains were back tracked to find out who they were in contact with to limit the exposure and effect on the human population.

Even in cattle, you will come across 'doubtfuls', cattle that show up as being a concern with a borderline reaction to the TB test but not fully positive. A large proportion will retest as negative and may do so with years but show up positive in the factory or once sold into another herd. They have TB which is localised in the body and, once stresses come into play, release the bacteria into the environment again.

Look, I'm going to leave it there. All the information I have given is easily available from vets and Dept staff involved in the TB eradication scheme and, I assume, online sources. Badger culling is shown to have a hugely positive effect on the incidence of TB in cattle and conversely, culling of cattle with TB is shown to have a huge positive effect on incidence of TB in badgers.

Badgers and cattle are linked together and evidence of deer being linked again with transmission of TB is mounting and those, I'm afraid, are the facts on the ground.

Widdershins · 13-02-2017 09:00PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

TB is a chronic disease, not an acute one. An infected badger, similar to an infected bovine or indeed an infected human will eventually die of a TB related complication but TB itself will continue to be spread by the infected to those not infected for the duration of their life.

Tbh, it's sad to see how quickly people forget the huge numbers of people infected with TB in the 40s, 50s and 60s in Ireland and the huge numbers of people sent to sanitoriums across the country. One of my grandfathers spent some 7 years of his life in one and eventually died from complications resulting from TB.

While I have no bad feelings about badgers, I'm slightly incredulous about the casual way the threat of TB returning is being treated. People would want to have a chat with their parents/grandparents about what the prognosis of those being sent to sanitoriums was.

Badgers evict all sick members from their setts to limit disease outbreaks. And there you have it, TB infected badgers being expelled from their setts and free to spread TB along whatever route they take before death. And after they are expelled, the sett is as close to a perfect reservoir for incubating and propagating the disease as you can find in nature. The bacterium will remain in the sett for ages and exposes any living in the sett to become infected again and continue the cycle. And once infected, vaccinations aren't going to help those infected.

I don't fully understand the cattle vaccination situation but to say we should be aware of the tb risk, when we're all vaccinated against it, really makes me wonder why we bother with the vaccine at all. If you're not protected then it's a waste of time, bottom line.

I also agree with the poster who said the culling must end because there are so few badgers left. I find it really sad that some people just don't care. I understand farmers protecting their livelihood but still.

KingBrian2 · 13-02-2017 09:16PM

Glenster wrote: »

We've loads of forests.

7% of Ireland is publicly owned forest.

Nonsense thread is nonsense.

Yeah the thread is some what nonsense. Tasice does a lot to improve the forests we have in this country so it not like we are deforesting the whole island for commercial use. The OP would have a case if he was talking about Fracking or the use of industrial pollutants that poison the environment. Thankfully we don't have that here. I see the real issue would be perhaps the way we blend wind turbines and pylons into the country in order to work with rural people.

foxy farmer · 13-02-2017 09:34PM

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Yeah the thread is some what nonsense. Tasice does a lot to improve the forests we have in this country so it not like we are deforesting the whole island for commercial use. The OP would have a case if he was talking about Fracking or the use of industrial pollutants that poison the environment. Thankfully we don't have that here. I see the real issue would be perhaps the way we blend wind turbines and pylons into the country in order to work with rural people.

Wait till the solar electric panels start going up. A bigger eyesore than any pylon or turbine and huge tracts of ground become wasteland.

Johnboner · 13-02-2017 09:39PM

Glenster wrote: »

We've loads of forests.

7% of Ireland is publicly owned forest.

Nonsense thread is nonsense.

Nonsense??? We have the least forested land in any country in Europe and you are telling me we have loads of forests??? Even the extremely overpopulated UK with people on every inch of land have more forests than Ireland.

Our nations self destruction

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