As the first badgers in England are about to be slaughtered under Government license Wildwood Trust are coming to their defence.
The story behind why the badgers are being killed has been explored by Wildwood Trust Chief Executive, Peter Smith, in a campaign video being sent to the Canterbury based charities' 54,000 members and available on their website & on YouTube. Wildwood Trust is calling on their supporters to join Dr Brian May OBE, & sign the Government e-petition he has created and push it over the 100,000 signatures needed to make the issue debated in Parliament.
Watch the Wildwood Campaign Video here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9B8gTC4TVI
In the film, Peter, a conservation scientist whose first degree was in Medical Biochemistry, investigates the science between badgers, TB and the cattle industry. Peter uncovers the myths behind the science and just who is peddling those myths for their own economic advantage.
Peter comments:
"There is no good science that links badgers with the spread of TB in cows, but for nearly 40 years the factory farming lobby have used badgers as a scapegoat to disguise criminal activity, poor farming practices and profiteering that are the real causes of the spread of bovine TB"
"This appalling and senseless slaughter of badgers has many origins; discredited science, financial interests, animal cruelty & criminality have come together to try and disguise the plain and simple truth that it is modern framing practices that is causing the spread of Bovine tuberculosis."
Peter, who has studied and lectured on how we can create economic systems that boost the economy and wildlife, has proposed an innovative set of solutions that can save the taxpayer money and solve the crisis of TB in cows. These are quickly implementable solutions that can save British farming, cows and badgers until advances in vaccines can be implemented on the ground.
These include:
- Abolishing taxpayer subsidies that encourage illegal and damaging farming practices and to replace subsidies with private insurance of cattle farmers that rewards good animal husbandry and financially punishes illegal and poor farming practice
- Shifting the economic policies to favour Land Value Taxes to stop monopolies from forming in the food chain that exploit government subsidies and poor farming practices. Such a policy would also make lower intensity cattle farming more economically competitive & favor less densely packed cattle herds, thus reduce Bovine TB transmission.
- Reintroducing the strict cattle quarantine systems of the post war period that eliminated Bovine TB, the abolition of these practices being chiefly responsible for the health problem we see today
- Invest in proper, unbiased, scientific research into Bovine TB and effective control through cattle vaccinations.
Click here for the Government e-petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38257
**************************ENDS***************************************
Peter Smith
Chief Executive
Wildwood Trust
Chief Executive
Wildwood Trust
Tel: 01227 712111www.wildwoodtrust.org
If you would like to receive our monthly newsletter then sign up on http://www.wildwoodtrust.org/news.htm#events
Wildwood Trust is Kent's unique 'Woodland Discovery Park', a visitor attraction with a difference.
Wildwood is not only the best place to bring the family for a day out, but it is also a bold and innovative conservation charity, backed by the UK's leading wildlife conservationists. Wildwood Trust's mission is to save our native and once native wildlife from extinction and to bring back our true 'wildwood', a unique new way of restoring Britain's land to its natural state. This involves releasing large wild herbivores and developing conservation grazing systems to restore natural ecological processes to help Britain team with wildlife again.
Wildwood offers its members and visitors a truly inspirational way to learn about the natural history of Britain by actually seeing the wildlife that once lived here. Set in a sublime 38 acres of Ancient Woodland, Wildwood offers visitors a truly unique experience. Come Nose to Nose with our secretive badgers, experience what it is like to be hunted by a real live pack of wolves, watch a charging wild boar or track down a beaver in his lodge. Wildwood Trust runs a highly successful programme of conservation Projects - we are the UK's leading experts in rescuing and re-establishing colonies of Britain's most threatened mammal, the water vole. Wildwood Trust has pioneered the use of ancient wild horses to restore nature reserve. Wildwood Trust has been at the forefront of efforts to re-establish the European Beaver back in Britain where they belong. European Beaver have been proven to help manage waterways to bring back a huge range of plants, insects and animals.
Wildwood Trust
Herne Common
Herne Bay
Kent
CT6 7LQ
Registered Charity No 1093702
No comments:
Post a Comment