STOP THE CULL video from the Badger Trust
OCTOBER 25TH
Thanks to the the e-gov petition posted by the coalition Team Badger there will be a six-hour debate in Parliament on the badger cull on this date. Currently more than 157,000 people have signed it. Please add your name and support
See: 'Badger cull opponents granted first Commons debate' by Damian Carrington [The Guardian 10th Oct 2012
'Badger's: Splitting public opinion for more than 200 years' by Rober Harrabin
This is one of the most important single articles on the badger issue and deserves to be widely read.
It centres on the work of Dr Angela Cassidy from Imperial College London, who has written a paper entitled: 'Vermin, Victims and Disease: UK Framings of badgers in and beyond the bovine TB controversy'. You have to pay to read the whole article but the abstract reads:
Dr Cassidy told BBC News that [badgers] have 'consistently divided opinion, with farmers wanting rid of them and animal lovers seeking to protect them. She said that bombarding people with science about TB in the animals would fail, as the debate was really about emotions and values.
"The sides have a very different understanding of what the countryside is for and how we should treat animals," she said.
"That's why I think one of the reasons why the focus on the evidence isn't getting us that far is because it can be interpreted in different ways and what we have to acknowledge is that there are different values going on, and this is a very political debate."
'Badger's: Splitting public opinion for more than 200 years' by Rober Harrabin
This is one of the most important single articles on the badger issue and deserves to be widely read.
It centres on the work of Dr Angela Cassidy from Imperial College London, who has written a paper entitled: 'Vermin, Victims and Disease: UK Framings of badgers in and beyond the bovine TB controversy'. You have to pay to read the whole article but the abstract reads:
'The question of whether to cull wild badgers in order to control the spread of bovine TB (bTB) in UK cattle herds has been deeply contentious for nearly 40 years, and still shows no sign of resolution. This paper will examine the strategic framing of badgers in recent debates over bTB in the UK media, which take two opposing forms: the ‘good badger’ as epitomised in Kenneth Grahame's children's novel ‘The Wind in the Willows’; and the less familiar ‘bad badger’: carnivore, digger, and carrier of disease. It will then uncover the deeper historical and cultural roots of these representations, to argue that underlying the contemporary ‘badger/bTB’ controversy is an older ‘badger debate’ about the proper relationship between these wild animals and humans. Finally, the implications of this finding for current debates over bTB policy will be explored.'
Dr Cassidy told BBC News that [badgers] have 'consistently divided opinion, with farmers wanting rid of them and animal lovers seeking to protect them. She said that bombarding people with science about TB in the animals would fail, as the debate was really about emotions and values.
"The sides have a very different understanding of what the countryside is for and how we should treat animals," she said.
"That's why I think one of the reasons why the focus on the evidence isn't getting us that far is because it can be interpreted in different ways and what we have to acknowledge is that there are different values going on, and this is a very political debate."
1 comment:
Here is my Rochdale Online article on the badger cull titled 'TB Not Infectious'. John Wantling, Rochdale
Badger Cull - TB not Infectious
http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/129/letters-to-the-editor/88509/badger-cull-tb-not-infectious
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