Terrible news just out is that legal challenge to the badger cull has been rejected by the High Court. This means the pilot culls in West Gloucestershire and Somerset are now set to go ahead in the autumn. See the link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18811447
We now really need people to become more active to help stop the cull. There are meetings planned for the proposed cull sites later in the month to help show the level of concern and plan for for what we can do. These are being put together by a coalition of wildlife charities including Brian May's Save Me.
In Taunton on 20th July 6.30-8.30
In Tewkesbury 25th July 6.30-8.30
More details to follow.
The Stroud 100 continues to get support with 2 more councils signed up against the cull, Rodborough and Cam which is great for us locally.
Join the Stroud 100 and help stop the proposed badger cull in Stroud.
I have been sending out the following email widely; I hope the information can be of use to your campaign:
ReplyDelete'In regard for your interest in the badger cull, below is some material I have copied from Mark Purdey's book, 'Animal Pharm'.
Hopefully, you will be able to use the information in furtherance of your misgivings about the cull.
He was very seriously harassed in life, as were people who collaberated with him (his lawyer and a vet died in mysterious car crashes; a second vet had a car crash, but survived. Three scientists working on TSE's met their deaths at a critical time of BSE outbreak.
There was much more, but I can't go into it all now.
As I believe you will agree, the book contains some very important work, and needs further follow-up research. Hopefully you will read his book. I suspect that it is blacklisted in libraries, because there is not one copy in the Greater London Library system (except obviously the British Library).
These are the last two paragraphs of Mark's book (just before Nigel's 'Afterword' and 'Appendix' chapters; Mark had not finished the book, and his brother finished it off from Mark's papers and preliminary work):
'But perhaps the most positive piece of news from behind the iron curtain of the TB hazard zone involves the results of some pilot studies I had conducted on a batch of 'inconclusive' TB-reactor cows on my farm. I had intensively fed these cows with a mineral protein formulation that was designed to chelate the iron and also to impair the uptake of iron into the cow.I was running this pilot experiment with the aim of starving the TB organism to death. The results so far have been encouraging, involving six inconclusive animals on my farm (five were milking cows) that had been fed the formulation during each milking over a one-month period. At the TB test last week, the government vets declared that four out of the five treated animals had recovered and reverted to the TB-free status, whilst the remaining one had retained her 'inconclusive' status. The sixth TB-inconclusive' animal, which was a beef steer and had never been fed the formulation, was found to have progressed to full 'TB reactor' status and is condemned to slaughter.
Whilst the positive results of this pilot study are not significant in scientific terms, because of the small number of animals involved, they indicate the likelihood that these 'inconclusive' cattle are no longer reacting to the TB test because they had been treated with a feed which chelates and competes for the iron. It is imperative that this investigation is advanced to the next stage and tested on a much larger group of animals'.
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ReplyDeleteHere is some of his last work, copied from his book, regarding TB:
'Farmers had cut down on the so-called 'non-essential' lime and calcified seaweed fertilisers. This had been exacerbated by recent conservation measures that had debarred the harvesting of Cornish calcified seaweed altogether. This, together with general reduction in use of lime fertilisers, combined with recent increases in winter rainfall across the western UK had acidified the topsoil as a result. Other influences such as acid rain and continued use of so-called 'essential' artificial fertilisers will be playing a role in the acidification of agricultural ecosystems.
The pH of the soil on Mark's farm had dropped from an acceptable neutral 6 to an acidic 5 over three years.
Research has shown there is a correlation between areas of high mycobacteria incidence and regions where the soils are acidic.
This association is strengthened by the results of studies in which lime was spread on farms in Michigan that were suffering from high rates of mycobacterium infection (albeit the paratuberculosis strain of mycobacterium). The study concluded that the lime treatment had produced a tenfold reduction in the infection of cattle after a three-year period had passed....
The relevant issue in respect of TB infection and soil acidity hinges on the fact that acidification of the topsoil leads to an excessive accumulation of iron, particularly in the regions where soil iron is naturally elevated and rainfall is high. The iron is taken up into the herbage and percolates into local water supplies. Animals eat and drink of these high iron sources....
Interestingly, the key hot spots of bovine TB across the UK are the Forest of Dean, Exmoor, Cornwall, Devon and the Mendip Hills.
These regions all correlate with the areas where iron has been mined in abundance and rainfall is high....
Preliminary pasture sampling from the specific fields on Mark's own farm (June 2005) where the TB-reactors had been pastured has consistently demonstrated an excessive elevation of iron (average 378 mg/kg) in relation to levels of 143 mg/kg recorded three years previously.
This research is being expanded to cover TB-free and TB cluster areas of the UK.
(Devastatingly, Mark was diagnosed with a brain tumour in the run-up to Christmas 2005; his life was saved by an emergency operation at Frenchay Hospital on the 21st December 2005 - Mark had a great deal of praise for the neurosurgery and nursing care he received there. He went home to his farm, and gradually started to rebuild his life, but the cancer returned the next year, and he died on November 12th, 2006. I expect the research stopped with his illness and death - Paul).
Here are some websites re Mark, and also a 35 minute video interview:
http://www.markpurdey.com/
http://www.purdeyenvironment.com/
http://www.warmwell.com/purdeypage.html
Mark in a 2001 video interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MheeiX2w8JU