I think most people will be aware by now that the Kimblewick Hunt had to destroy a large number of their hounds due to being infected with bTB. The original story broken by our friends over at Hounds Off can be read here. There is, justifiably a significant amount of concern from all sides regarding this news. Defra have always maintained that the risk of contracting bTB for pets and dogs in particular is very low but when you consider that hunting hounds are far from pets and live in conditions few would let their own companion animals live in you’ll start to get closer to the point.
Hounds are kept in a pack, they eat, sleep and live in close proximity. Most importantly they are fed on “fallen Stock”. These are animals which have died on surrounding farms for various and probably untested reasons, that the hunt will collect as a service to the farmers, which are in turn given to the hounds as food. In this instance it doesn’t take a genius to work out where the infection has come from. Another important point is the hunting country of the Kimblewick. Although based at their kennels just outside Aylesbury they cover parts of the counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Hertforshire. An area which in total is roughly the size of Cornwall. Now consider that some of these counties are considered as part of the edge zones in the fight against bTB and the potential for the hounds to be spreading the disease over a vast area including those considered free from TB. I took the current TB outbreak map from the Defra website and overlaid the Kimblewick hunt country (see below).
Kimblewick Hunt Country and TB Outbreaks.
Obviously the risk off spreading the disease by hounds regardless of the what Defra claim is going to be high. The M.Bovis bacterium can survive for a significant time in the excrement left behind by the hounds, and they do leave a lot of it all over the place during a days hunting and is obviously never cleaned up by the hunt staff. So what is being done? Well obviously the kennels were put under quarantine and the poor affected hounds were shot. However that didn’t stop them from hunting. Visiting packs were used and hunted on the Kimblewick’s ground. Further revelations came to light when once again Hounds Off were sent a note which they in turn passed on to me. See below.
There are only two listed vets in Berkhamstead I can find. St Johns and Clarke & Marshall. One would have to assume that is it one of these vets that are involved (feel free to contact them and find out which one). With all due respect to the practices shown you would have expected an organisation which specialised in bTB to be more appropriate. The equine vet in question, Bob Baskerville was originally a partner in the Baskerville Horgan & Partners practice which is now part of Hampden Vets. Although he is not currently listed as one of their equine staff, a quick Google search picks out several links between Baskerville and the Kimblewick so it’s safe to assume he is indeed a member of the hunt.
Lord Garnider of Kimble is as described in the note, he was also chief spin doctor for the Countryside Alliance and is still an executive director. Clearly the hunting fraternity were so deeply concerned about the implications of a hunt having bTB infected hounds they brought out their big guns in collaboration with the CA in order to suppress the information for as long as they could (thank heavens for loose lipped hunt followers) and then be seen to be dealing with it properly once it became public knowledge. Of course the real problem with this is a complete lack of impartiality. Any and all information which could have a negative effect on hunting in relation to bTB will be witheld once again. Hunting simply cannot afford to have this sort of negative publicity and potentially lose much of the ground they hunt over as concerned land owners withdraw their permission to hunt on their land. Many land owners have already banned the Kimblewick from using their land and rightly so.
How many hounds around the country are spreading bTB?
Perhaps it’s now time for all hunts to have their hounds tested, especially those in the high risk areas and all hunting suspended until each and every pack is given a clean bill of health. Considering it is now the hunting closed season you would expect this to be the perfect time. The only previous data relating to TB in hounds came from a FOI request by Keep the Ban and published by TB Free England and he summed up the response thus:
“In the last 7 years, only 50 hunt hounds have been tested for Bovine TB, 5 of those were positive of infection (10%). 45 samples from hounds were taken over the same period, of which 7 were potentially infected (16%).
The sample sizes are too small to determine the statistical significance, but it does call Defra’s line that “M.bovis infection in dogs is extremely rare” into question… If they haven’t looked, how do they know it’s rare? And when they did look and found more than 10% to be infected, doesn’t this suggest it might be more of a problem than they thought?”
It’s fairly clear to me that this rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than those at Defra will admit, but while they’re so thoroughly within the sphere of influence of the CA then we will probably never know the full extent of the problem and hunts will continue to spread the disease over our countryside and badgers will continue to get the blame and die in their thousands.
The Massacre Continues
Posted: September 18, 2019 in CommentTags: Badger Cull, Bovine TB, Defra, Dominic Woodfield, Government, Hunt Saboteurs, NFU, Tony Juniper
Let’s face it, the Government are in a complete shambles. The Brexit debacle continues to rumble on with the mop topped bag of meat paste we call a Prime Minister trying to lie his way out of the biggest crises in British politics I can remember in my life time. I think this is one of the problems behind the lack of coverage of the Badger Cull this year. Defra have attempted to quietly slip in vast new swathes of our countryside where badgers can now legally be killed by those who are stupid enough to believe it will help solve the bTB problem in cattle or those who just have some pathological hatred for out wildlife, probably because they are unable to make some kind of profit from it.
I’m not going to go into all the science (of lack of) behind it all as I feel that has been covered plenty of times from lots of different sources already but what I will do is highlight just the sort of numbers we’re talking about here.
Take a look at the image below. It’s of the Emirates stadium, home to Arsenal Football Club.
It holds just over 60,000 people. That’s a lot right?
The Government are allowing the NFU to kill up to 64,000 badgers. That’s 4000 more than the number of people in this picture. Just imagine that.
There have been 11 new cull zones added to those previously licensed bringing the number to 43 in total, an area bigger than Israel! (Guardian article)
Of course this makes it a very busy time for all those standing against it. Sabs and patrollers up and down the country are doing their very best to save the lives they can at a time when the hunts are also involved in their grubby little business of training their hounds to kill, better known as the cubbing season. Late nights and early mornings are the order of the day and now more than ever we need your help and support. Go to innocentbadger.com for more info and on how to get involved. You can also donate to our efforts by clicking the donate link in the header.
Of course we all hoped that with the introduction of a new head man at the helm of Natural England there would be some light at the end of the tunnel. Tony Juniper had previously came out as strongly against the cull on social media so it seemed we had, for once, someone who was prepared to stand up for wildlife and give Natural England the teeth it was so desperately lacking.
However it now seems that an official position and a no doubt significant pay cheque is all that’s needed to subvert that opinion and become another lap dog for Defra and their masters at the NFU. Tony wrote a blog on his decision (see here) which has since been roundly criticised by both the general public and the scientific community alike but probably best done by Dominic Woodfield in his guest blog on Mark Avery’s site. (see here).
There is of course great work being done in the fields but it’s impossible to save them all.
Cages are being neutralised, a selection above from Devon, Cornwall and Staffordshire. Shooters are being sent packing and we’re using the best technology available to find and stop the killing, both in the air and on the ground but funds are limited and vast areas need to be covered so now, more than ever is the time to get involved. There’s a job for everyone so please, don’t sit there getting angry, get out there and help make a difference. When all other options have failed, direct action is all you are left with.