Plans to eradicate bovine TB in England unveiled
4 Apr 2014 11:27 AM
A comprehensive Strategy to achieve TB free
status in England by 2038 was announced by Environment Secretary Owen
Paterson yesterday.
This includes continuing to strengthen cattle movement
controls, a grant-funded scheme for badger vaccination projects in the
‘edge area’ at the frontier of the disease, and improvements to the
four-year badger cull pilots in Somerset and Gloucestershire.
Following recommendations from the Independent Expert
Panel that assessed the badger cull pilots last year, a series of changes will
be made to improve the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of culling. These
changes will be monitored to assess their impact before further decisions are
taken on more badger cull licences next year.
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson:
The
four year culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire are pilots and we always
expected to learn lessons from them.
It
is crucial we get this right. That is why we are taking a responsible approach,
accepting recommendations from experts to make the pilots
better.
Doing nothing is not an option. Bovine TB is a terrible
disease which is devastating our cattle and dairy industries and causing misery
for many people in rural communities. We need to do everything we can, as set
out in our Strategy, to make England TB free.
Improvements to the pilot culls will include more
extensive training for contractors carrying out the cull, better planning by
the licensed companies to ensure culling is spread evenly across all land
available and better data collection to assess progress. The changes being
introduced will help increase the effectiveness of the culls by removing more
badgers in a safe and humane way.
There will be a trial of a new service in Somerset and
Gloucestershire to provide farmers with bespoke advice on how to better protect
their farms from disease. This service will be available to all farmers within
the licensed cull areas.
Addressing bovine TB in badgers in high risk areas is
just one part of a new long-term strategy to eradicate bovine TB from England.
The strategy demonstrates the wide range of tools we will use to achieve TB
free status by 2038. This includes:
-
Offering grant funding for private badger vaccination
projects in the edge areas aiming to increase TB immunity in uninfected badgers
and reduce the spread of the disease. Defra will provide match-funding for
successful applicants;
-
Continuing to strengthen our cattle movement controls
and testing regime to stop the disease from spreading from herd to
herd;
-
Improving biosecurity by helping farmers understand the
disease risk of cattle they buy; and
-
Continuing to invest in development of a new vaccine for
cattle which could be field tested next year, and an oral badger vaccine which
we would look to have available for use by 2019.
The
scale of the problem is different across the country, so we will establish
three bTB management regions known as the High Risk Area, Low Risk Area and the
Edge area. A range of measures will be applied to control the disease within
each zone according to the risk.
Notes
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