Hunting and the Tao of Pooh

A few years ago I received as part of my weekly mailing as a councillor a note regarding Neospora abortion in cattle. It seems that according to the NFU this is the most commonly diagnosed cause for cattle aborting.

It seems that Neospora canimum, a parasite, in which the definitive host is usually canine; e.g. a dog and they pass oocysts; this is a hardy, thick-walled spore able to survive for lengthy periods outside their host and is contained in the dogs faeces. 

The NFU are therefore calling for dog owners to clean up after their dogs, as I suspect that being in the countryside people assume that nature will clean up for them and also as they are fewer people about the dog mess collection can mistakenly be forgotten when free from watchful eyes.

Now this has got me thinking, as not a dog owner myself but I usually hear that around this time, the local vets putting up signs to warn dog owners that a new outbreak of Kennel Cough has been detected, and to ensure your pet is vaccinated. This leads on to me thinking where does this outbreak originate from? Could it be the start of Autumn Hunting, formally called Cub Hunting where new hounds are trained on fox cubs; as the hound shows are all but over and fresh from their travels the hounds are out and about on local farmland once again!

But this begs the critical question: 

When is a dog not a dog?

Hound Dogs

Answer: 
When its a hunting hound!

Now hounds are still classed as sporting dogs and so not subject to the usual rules and regulations that other dog owners have to follow. I have yet to see a huntsman picking up hound pooh, but I live in hope. Or the vet popping around to the hunt kennels to do the annual inoculations and heath check for 101 hunting hounds.

But to return to the Neospora canimum problem where if cattle or sheep ingest part of the dog’s faeces then that animal becomes an intermediate host. Then if the intermediate host, for example the cow dies and bits of it are eaten by the definitive host (e.g. dog), the cycle for this disease is complete. 

The Neospore Cycle

Therefore surely it would make sense to ensure that casualty sheep and cattle (including still born calfs) are not fed to hounds!   These casualties are usually termed as “Fallen Stock” by the hunt and often used to promote one of two reasons for fox hunting to exist. The other being “Pest Control”, but with hunts using artificial earths that seems a red herring of a reason.

The Old Lies for Fox-hunting

1. Fallen Stock

2. Pest Control

Even more interestingly and strangely, apparently foxes can be intermediate hosts, but not definitive hosts, and therefore if a fox carrying the disease is killed and eaten by hounds, the hounds could be infected, and they in turn could infect cattle and sheep as they pooh on farmland!  

Perhaps the most critical reason for banning hounds from killing foxes!

Hounds Feeding on a Fox

I suppose the hunts could employ many volunteer “Pooh Pickers” in much the same way they employ “Fence Menders” to repair broken fences on hunt days, but would they get all the pooh? But they would also need to muzzle the hounds!

The NFU have produced a new leaflet entitled “Enjoy the countryside responsibly with your dog”, I just wonder if they will call for hounds to be banned from running free over farmland!

I suspect not as the farmer will shoot any pet dog worrying livestock but again hunt hounds are exempt and are allowed to worry and kill livestock accidentally while out hunting.

The NFU struggle with science, as can be witnessed with the Badger Cull, begs the question if this is another example where an acute selective understanding of the science is required in order to maintain the traditional rural countryside and all its barbaric rituals.

I just wonder if the NFU have taken the lead on this without consulting the Countryside Alliance who would not like to see their hounds brought under the normal rules and regulations that everyone else has to obey regarding their dogs. Oops I mean hunting hounds!

Badgers of Mass Destruction - Revisited!

It was in July 2012 that I first wrote this article and at that time the badger cull was intending to start in the autumn of 2012. However they were problems with the count of the number of badgers present and the cull was delayed for another year. Caroline Spelman left and Owen Paterson arrived, new counts  carried out but now Owen Paterson claimed the Badgers moved the goalposts!

Badgers of Mass Destruction - July 2012.

The parallels between Tony Blair and Iraq and the Badgers and bTB are quite simply astounding with both science, intelligence and common sense being completely manipulated to suit the needs of the premier cause of “it’s all the fault of the Badger”. The government is simply pandering to the needs of farmers as they need a scapegoat, someone to blame for there poor husbandry and the flawed technology involved in cattle testing on many farms.

New scientific research published (ref 1) by the Agrifood and Biosciences Institute (NI) that co-infection with other pathogens (e.g. common liver fluke) suppresses cows' immune response to bTB so can give false negatives during bTB testing. Hence the bTB test can fail to diagnose bTB and bTB-infected animals will remain in the herd leading to further herd breakdowns which farmers, Caroline Spelman & DEFRA so readily blame on badgers.

Organisations like the National Farmers’ Union, the Countryside Alliance and the Country Land and Business Association, believe that the only people who live in the countryside who have a say on this matter are the farmers and landowners. Now with the chairman of Natural England and the DEFRA minster both farmers, it should comes as no surprise that the badger cull will proceed on the highly selected and massaged piece of science presented to the British media. Just like Tony Blair over the Iraq war the Cattle Barron's lead by the Nation Farmers Union have created a case for “Badgers For Mass Destruction”. This is where science has been filtered and the media spin put on the nasty vile badgers who cost the tax payers millions of pounds in dealing with this badger infecting cattle problem. They are all singing from the same hymn book as they know that this coalition government will deliver to the farmers and landowners what they want; wether it be the removal of vets from the slaughter process, reduction on food safety ‘red tape’ and of course the agricultural subsidies which go to about 1% of the well heeled rural population.

By allowing this cull to take place DEFRA, Caroline Spelman and this animal hostile government is in effect creating a new Blood Sport; ‘Badger Shooting’ which seems likely to increase perturbation and as a direct result the level of bTB in cattle will rise and like all Blood Sport groups they will claim that its all part of the countryside management plan.

Now early badger vaccination trials were very promising, so why has the Government cut back on vaccine research which is where the long-term solution lies, free of all the negative impacts of perturbation and public anger at the shooting of one of our protected species?

Natural England was supposed to look after and manage the relationship between who owns and farms the countryside and the wildlife and natural beauty that so many of us want to enjoy. But now Natural England is all ready to issue licences to shoot badgers to the minority rural pressure groups that have instigated this bloody cull.

- - - - - - - - - - - - THAT WAS 2012 - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Now two years later and two more Environment Minsters and we still have the brand new environment Minster seeking to continue the lie and push ahead for the Mass Destruction of badgers because farmers will not accept the science and the Environment Minster will only accept a political solution that keeps her parties countryside voters in place for the general election.

Now the NFU has been saying that this disease is killing British farming, but here we are two years down the line and the second year of the cull trial is about to start. The cull cannot be rolled out to other areas as its a complete and utter mess and classified by the Independent Expert Panel as ineffective, but will continue purely as a face saving exercise for DEFRA and the NFU. The Badgers must die so we can keep our jobs.

But Labour opposition MPs said they were "appalled" Ms Truss intended to continue a "discredited, unscientific, inhumane and ineffective" badger cull. The pilot culls in 2013 were assessed by an Independent Expert Panel (IEP) as ineffective, so in 2014 the IEP will not be used, the Environment Agency don’t want the truth to get out! 

Liz All Trussed-Up Paterson
Female Minster in Place for the General Election

When challenged in the Commons by Labour's Maria Eagle, the shadow environment secretary, to guarantee the IEP's inclusion - Ms Truss said: "The reality is that bovine TB represents a massive threat to our dairy and beef industries and we need to look at the best scientific evidence”. 

Labour's Maria Eagle: Policy Needs to be Based on Sound Science!

But just like the NFU, farmers and DEFRA, stating that science will play no part in the culling of badgers.

Now Liz Truss has been given the job because David Cameron needed to increase the number of female cabinet members in the run up to the general election and Ms Truss’s role as Environment Minster has been all sewn up by the NFU and Owen Paterson.

It really is a case of Liz Trussup Paterson the most ineffective minister in government?

Recently Melanie Squires, the SW Regional Director of the NFU, gave the following opinion in the local press: “Scientists won’t solve the bovine TB crisis in Britain.” Again the problem is all in the name: bovine TB, bovine means cattle; its cattle problem and needs to be sorted out in cattle.

According to the World Health Organisation one third of the world's human population is infected with tuberculosis which spreads when infectious people cough, sneeze or spit into the air.  Between 5% and 10% of those infected will become sick or infectious sometime during their life. 

Thirty five years ago MAFF officials (before it was called DEFRA) were asking the question, "Can badgers transmit TB to cattle?"   The answer was, "We don't know, but we we think they might be able to".

Now it is pretty obvious how infected cattle can transmit bovine TB to badgers, because badgers snuffle around for grubs and earthworms in infected cow-pats and slurry-soaked pasture and it is easy to see how intensively reared cattle, who communicate with each other by breathing up each others' noses, can spread this respiratory disease to other cattle. Since MAFF asked that question many years ago they quickly concluded that the vector of infection from badger to cattle is so small it can ignored.

So how can the problem to solved, well its all down to money, someone will have to pay for the bio-security improvements need on farms as industrial farming takes hold and its clear farmers do not want to do that; this is the real reason why a badger cull is so popular with them. In addition I can never understand the reasons for the buying and selling of cattle resulting in the very high number of cattle movements taking place; the highest in europe. Is it really necessary to have all this cattle movement taking place? Yes restock but why have cattle markets for farms under TB restrictions?

Over 13 Millions Cattle Movements per Year!

Why, Oh why are so many cattle being moved around the country when the bovine TB testing methods are weak and error prone.

Police Liaison Officers (PLOs) - the Friendly Face of the NFU!

I just wonder if many who were at the big London Badger March on 1st June 2013 and  remember the police videoing us as we marched through the streets of London? In this case the police officers were wearing orange bib Hi-Vis jackets and were attempting to capture good quality images of any Sabs they saw on the march. This was intelligence gathering in order that the government sponsored badger cull could proceed with many key activists monitored or taken out of the picture by surveillance.

Blue Bib PLOs Are They Your Friend?

Also badgerists who have been involved in organising Badger Marches have been contacted by local Police Liaison Officers (PLOs) in order to ‘help them’ keep safe during the march and they have been follow-up calls to seek and information out of these organisers.

Now a review of Operation Mansell, the policing of last year’s anti-fracking protests in Balcombe in Sussex. This was the one that the only Green MP Caroline Lucas was arrested along with her teenage son. Well a police review has confirmed that Police Liaison Officers (PLOs), usually identified by wearing blue-bibbed Hi-Vis jackets, now routinely deployed at protests and demonstrations, are now seen by senior police officers as playing a ‘pivotal role’ in gathering intelligence on protesters. In some cases the police have been accused of gathering intelligence and intimidating protesters after a film shows plainclothes police officers visiting a fracking campaigner's home and questioning her on her involvement with the anti-fracking movement and association with UK Uncut!

PLO - Weapon Out And Ready For Action!

Hertfordshire Police and Essex Police have carried out a review of Sussex police handling of the Balcombe anti-fracking protests against the company Cuadrilla and have concluded that the Police Liaison Officers (PLTs) in Sussex displayed good practices and outcomes that have had a dramatic and positive impact on the policing of protest in Sussex in line with our arguments concerning their effectiveness.

We should remember that it was Hertfordshire Police that also concluded that Avon & Somerset constabulary achieved “Best Practice” by having members of both the NFU and the private cull company present in the police HQ Control Room.

One can only conclude that both Avon & Somerset and Gloucestershire constabularies are preparing for future protests by anti-badger cull protesters but are starting to share strategy and intelligence with other forces around the country; the term “Big Brother is watching you” has become a reality!

I have not been to the Gloucestershire zone, but they are a set of Vehicle Number Plate Registration Capture cameras on the A358 as you leave Taunton and this could signal to the police that for example the Manchester Sabs are now entering the West Somerset cull zone.

Vehicle ID Cameras on the A358 Near the Cross Keys Roundabout

The government have funded the policing of the cull in support of the NFU who just want the badgers shot dead by their cull contractors using the police as a private security company.

So when we see the police out in the cull zone are we looking at a hijacked police force operating under the terms and conditions of the NFU sponsored badger cull?

Somerset Badger Police

As a Labour party member and local town councillor with a keen interest in animal welfare I chose to attend the Badger Cull zone in West Somerset and partake in the lawful and peaceful Somerset Badger Patrols that were running each night during the cull period.

We often heard in the press that Avon & Somerset constabulary were keen to allow peaceful protest during the cull period and that they would remain neutral as they policed the cull area.

Spotlight: Badger and Sue Mountstevens

However this would appear so far removed from the truth as meetings with the NFU commenced at the Bath & West show in May 2013, three months before the cull started. 
The shooting started on the 26 August 2013 and continued for a six week period ending on the 7 October. During this period they were no meeting with any anti-badger groups, but by then Avon & Somerset Constabulary had agreed to have personnel from both the NFU and the newly set-up NFU sponsored private limited company HNV Associates Ltd in the control room at police HQ. 

This cull company HNV Associates lists its nature of business as Hunting, trapping and related service activities!

One may begin to wonder about Avon & Somerset constabulary deciding to have personnel from the Countryside Alliance during any fox hunting related policing they may undertake?

Hunting Scene

They are various other grouping within the countryside that has the view that wildlife is a nuisance and the badger in particular in relation to the many pheasant shoots. Now you only have to look at the locations of the two badger cull zones in West Somerset and Gloucestershire; both these locations are home too many pheasant shooting estates and are awash with an array eager and keen of blood sports enthusiasts all to ready to participate in the cull. 

With the advent of solar farms and bio-fuel crops being developed, then in the rush for quick profits the overarching desire is to have no legally protected species of wildlife for many countryside businesses, our native wildlife simply gets in the way of countryside profits.

But perhaps the worst aspect of the Badger Cull is the way that the shooting has been allocated to private companies like HNV Associates Ltd and then to individuals. 
These companies are then able to recruit the local blood sports hobbyists; who generally tend to be lampers, shooters, gamekeepers, terrier-men and supporters of the local hunts. Many will also be members of the Countryside Alliance and so the circle of evil is complete in the countryside.

Quad Bikes racing around the countryside many unmarked and unregisters loaded with armed men whose sole purpose is to kill badgers the iconic symbol of all the Wildlife Trusts and a protected species, fully aided and supported by Avon & Somerset constabulary!

Hunting Quad Bikes in the Countryside!

Many of these Quad Bikes are classed as farm vehicles and so required no tax or insurance but often they will be seen driving along main roads and country lanes, tailgating any strange vehicles they come upon. Are the police interested? Of source not! And just to add a good pinch of salt into our wound, we as tax payers pay around £50 each toward their firearm licences!!

Just How Many Cullers Can You Get On A Quad Bike?

But to return to the Badger Cull, following the six weeks of shooting madness a week of calm reigned until the three week extension was rolled out and the shooting started again as the badgers had moved the goalposts and not enough were killed.

It was during this period that the PCC Sue Mountstevens did manage to meet with some the the anti-badger people. Better late than never some may say. But by this time serious policing issues were beginning to emerge. Some examples were cull contractors shooting over protesters heads at close range and a 999 call managed in part by NFU personnel in the police control room, where the victim of assault by cull contractors was re-classified as the suspect had a full vehicle search carried out. What this Avon & Somerset's two headed coin in play, where heads the badger gets it?

Anti badger cull protesters vehicles attacked by explosive rook scarers, just to add to the noise, distress and madness in the darkness of West Somerset's cull zone. The fact that interfering with these devices was an offence under the Explosives Act just did not register with the police as again heads the badger side gets it was the usual cry from the police. Just image how long a prison sentence any badger protester would get for letting of a rook scarer, The key would be thrown away!

Somerset Badger Patrol

I was also concerned that from speaking to a number of fellow badger patrol collogues that a high level of personnel searches, spot checks on vehicles; some for having the wrong shade of red on tail lights were carried out. Again I assume that this is the reason that the police were taking down anti badger cull protesters vehicle registration numbers in Williton, car park (where Somerset Badger Patrol met each night) and then distributed these lists at each nightly police briefing. One can only assume that this was to allow police officers on duty to stop and search and harassment Badger Patrol members. It has also been commented on that both the NFU and the HNV Associates were also collecting unfamiliar vehicle registration numbers in the cull zone.

Again it would appear that Avon and Somerset constabulary may be acting as agents, stewards or marshals of the NFU and the private limited cull company HNV Associates and it begs the question as to whether any personnel data on anti badger cull protesters and there vehicles were exchanged between the NFU and Avon & Somerset constabulary?

I and others did meet the Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens in March 2014 at Williton car park along with fellow Somerset Badger Patrol members and we did ask about the presence of the NFU officials in the control room. She stated that that decision was made by the Chief Constable (who is currently suspended from duty) and she cannot comment on operations issues. However the police and PCC would have you believe a picture of a well-managed control room. But the police’s own report gives a very different picture. It suggests that the control room was a chaotic place, where people were shouting across each other and conflicting information was flying back and forth between badger killers and police personnel.

PCC Meets Somerset Badger Patrol

The PCC, Sue Mountstevens is now eager to met with anti badger cull protesters in a post cull attempt to appear to show an even handed approach to the badger cull policing, but this seems nothing more than PR exercise as already Avon & Somerset constabulary have now stated that having NFU personnel in there control room allowed “Best Practice” for the policing of the badger cull. The NFU personnel gave real-time information on the shooting and God knows what else for the police to act on. The classification of “Best Practice” is being quoted while numerous complaints; both internal and external to the IPPC are still outstanding simply beggars belief.

I am gravely concerned that organisations such as the Nation Farmers Union and its private owned company HNV Associates Ltd working so closely with our local police force as the Nation Farmers Union is nothing more than a Trade Association and political pressure group working for the benefit of a small unelected and unaccountable rural minority of large rich landowners.

Avon & Somerset constabulary appear to have been drawn into a political role during this badger cull. It is no secret that the “Holy Trinity” of the Countryside Lobby groups is made up of the National Farmers Union (NFU), Countryside Alliance (CA) and the Countryside Land & Business Association (CLA) an all of these groups are 100% in support of the badger cull and a massive majority in favor of a Conservative government.

If anyone did think that having a PCC would allow openness, honesty and transparency into our police force then in this case nothing could be further from the truth. Sue Mountstevens was a magistrate and was a member of the now disbanded Police Authority and a local business woman. One could say she is part of the establishment and will not rock the boat when it comes to policing controversial countryside issues.

We only need to look back to the policing involved during the miners strike some thirty years ago. Yet again another black period for British policing. Are we starting to see history repeating itself as the police, government and its allies like the NFU work together to push through an ugly agenda? Is a new Water Cannon on order for Avon & Somerset constabulary to flush these pesky Badger protesters into the Bristol Channel?

Policing the Miners Strike 1984

Are they only one side to the badger cull policing where both the senior management police team and the PCC meet and spin a united PR front. The Chief Constable who made the decision to allow the NFU and its cull contractors into his HQ control room is currently suspended on another issue. However support for this decision appears to be widespread within the police senior management team and of course the PCC has a 'get out of jail card' with the line: "I cannot possibly comment on operational matters."

Is this what you expected for those 19% who did bothered to vote for a PCC in Avon & Somerset?

To me it looks like Bank Account policing where the police support those with the most money.

The Bloody Pro-Hunting Lobby Group VoteOK Comes Clean!

Reading in the local press regarding the antics of the pro-hunt group VoteOK, I am gratified as a Labour party member that this activity is now out in the open at long last.
No more secretly trying to remove anti-hunt Lib Dem and Labour MP’s in the sleepy marginals. 

Fighting To Get Hunting Legal Again

For about a decade now this group has been out and about getting pro-hunt MPs elected in the marginal seats. They claim that they managed to swing 36 marginal seats to pro-hunt Tories at the last election.

During previous elections many marginal seats were swamped by the traditional tweed clad countryside types promoting the failures in the NHS citing too many Labour appointed managers in place, or attempting to blame the global financial crisis on Labour's mismanagement. Rural Post Offices and local shop closures down to nasty Gordon Brown? But hunting was never mentioned during these door step and leafleting campaigns. The hunters were out just to get their man elected as an MP who would vote to repeal the Hunting Act and warm to the countryside land owning elite.

All political parties have their backers and funders, but perhaps the most covert is the Holy Trinity of the countryside; namely the National Farmers Union (NFU), Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and the Countryside Alliance (CA). They draw on support from all major political parties but in David Cameron they see as their true Messiah. The Prime Minster is a Fox Hunter, Deer Stalker and game shooter, married into the land owning aristocracy. Even his chancellor George Gideon Oliver Osborne is part of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and heir to the Osborne baronetcy.

Gone now are the Wind Farms, they interfere with hunting and confuse the pheasants and of course spoil the manor house views, but in their place are the vast Solar Farms looking like a lake of still water. Turning prime agricultural land into an industrial wasteland, while providing expensive green electricity to the masses at a healthy profit to the landowner.

Nuclear power is a Gas! As the Lady Lieutenant of Somerset has been able to lease her fields to the French EDF for a staggering £50M and at the end of the day will get the fields back!

The NFU get their Badger Culls to help the shooting estates get rid of the pesky badger to alleviate their problems with game birds and bird feeders.

Green field development will get the go-ahead when the landowners see a healthy profit.

Industrial farming will step up a gear as the sights are set on the Asian markets, barring a few teething problems with dodgy cheese hygiene issues. The countryside will then soon be full of battery cows milked three times a day, veal creates as far as the eye can see and pig pen arrays being the new crystal maze of horror.

In this scheme of things wildlife has no monetary value and the countryside belongs to the landowners who with taxpayers money will milk the life out of it for themselves.

I spy with the kids will now sound like as follows as the family travels down a typical A road; 
I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘V’; 
>>Veal Crate Arrays;
I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘P’; 
>>Pig Pen Arrays;
I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘M’; 
>>Mega Cow Sheds;
I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘B’; 
>>Bird Feeders for as far as the eye can see;
I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘T’; 
>>Tree; sorry I cannot see one as they were all chopped down to allow the light in for the Solar Farms.

Russell Brands comments that all parties are the same is beginning to ebb away now as clear blue water separates Labour and the Tories, but no one now knows what the Liberal Democrats stand for anymore and does anyone really care after there long night of love with the Tories!

You just need to look at the environment and flooding and the way Ian Liddle-Grainger reacted to understand where his loyalty lies. The flooding was not down to cuts in budgets or the way maze crops are managed or the deforestation of uplands to allow more intensive sheep farming. The floods were down to the actions of the Labour head of the Environment Agency who failed to stop the rain from falling or was as UKIP stated, gay marriage to blame!

VoteOK, lets make hunting legal again; vote Tory, your countryside expects it!

There is now a clear choice between Labour and the Tories now.

There is an alternative!