UK Parliament / Open data

Badger Cull

Proceeding contribution from Owen Paterson (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 5 June 2013. It occurred during Opposition day on Badger Cull.

That is an interesting question. We are following on from the Krebs trials—the RBCTs or randomised badger culling trials—and going to the next logical step, by learning the lessons from them and improving on them. One of the lessons was that 100 km is not a big enough area. We will extend it to nearly 300 km, so we have clear, definitive geographical boundaries. We will also be doing more analysis of the impact. These are two pilots, but the broad lesson to be learned from the countries I have mentioned is that we have to bear down both on disease in cattle in a very rigorous manner, as we are doing, and on disease in wildlife.

When I was in opposition, I went to Michigan and saw its stringent cattle and wildlife controls, which have enabled significant progress to be made, with a lowering of the prevalence of the disease in white-tailed deer in the endemic area by more than 60% and breakdowns in livestock averaging just three or four a year from 2005 to 2011. I could go on at great length, but I know we are short of time.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
563 c1532 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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