Comment

CALLS by a badger conservationist for New Forest cattle to be checked for bovine tuberculosis and then quarantined have been dismissed as "unfair" by the Court of Verderers.

Badgers are often blamed for passing on TB to cattle.

But there are also worries infected cattle could pass the disease onto badgers.

New Forest Badger Group president Ken James told the March court there were concerns about cattle being brought into the forest from outside "without any meaningful checks for infectious disease before being turned out on the forest".

And he pointed out that last year a herd was found positive for bTB and the paper trail led back to a cow that was part of a herd that had previously grazed in the forest.

At the April court, Official Verderer Oliver Crosthwaite Eyre said Verderers believed quaratine would not be helpful in controlling the spread of the disease.

"There are strict rules all over the country regarding the movement of cattle and testing for TB," he said.

"Even if we had a quarantining system for forest cattle, there is nothing to prevent non-commoning farmers bringing cattle into the area and turning them out into fields.

"We believe such a system would place an unfair and unnecessary burden on the commoners."

10:55am Sunday 4th May 2008

Print

Email this

Comment