Campaigners told to scrap badger ads
A West animal charity has been ordered to withdraw controversial adverts campaigning against a trial of the cull of badgers in a bid to stop bovine TB.
The Save the Badger campaign, run at the Secret World Wildlife Rescue centre in Highbridge, Somerset, took out newspaper adverts calling for the pilot culling scheme in parts of Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, west Wales, to be stopped.
But after two complaints from the Farmers Union of Wales to the Advertising Standards Authority about the claims made in the two ads, the regulators found against the charity and ordered it never to run the ads again.
The findings by the ASA have dealt a blow to future campaigns by animal rights organisations which have been battling culls of badgers to prevent bovine TB.
For the ASA has come down on the side of the farmers over the disputed science on whether a cull of badgers can eradicate TB in cattle.
Save the Badgers first ad showed pictures of a family of badgers and claimed: "The Welsh Assembly is about to begin a five year plan to slaughter badgers in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion – yes, exterminate a native breeding species!
"Lured with peanuts and trapped in cages until the 'executioner' finally arrives with a gun. Young cubs will starve underground, and hundreds of badgers will lose their lives in a 'pilot scheme' with no scientific justification. Yet, a vaccination for badgers is now available and currently being trialled. We say please, please, let's vaccinate, not exterminate!" it added.
Out of four specific complaints from farmers over the ads, just one was not upheld. The ASA decided the claim 'killing badgers does not work!' would easily be recognised as Save The Badger's own opinion, and was not presented as scientific fact.
But the first three complaints were upheld. The first was that claiming badger cubs would starve underground had not been substantiated by Save the Badger, and so was misleading.
The second, badgers would be exterminated, was misleading because a cull only reduced the badger population by 70 per cent, while the third had the most implications for future campaigns.
An ASA spokesman said: "We considered the claim 'hundreds of badgers will lose their lives in a pilot scheme with no scientific justification', was likely to be interpreted as absolute; however, we understood the question of whether there was scientific justification for the proposed cull remained under consideration at the time the ad appeared.
"Because the ad made an absolute claim about a matter that was the subject of complex debate, we concluded that it was misleading," he added.
"The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told STB to ensure they held robust substantiation before making claims that were not clearly an expression of their view in future," he added.
4 Comments
by david stevens, wells
Thursday, December 23 2010, 10:03PM
“What about these comments ?
Thursday 23rd December 2010
To: Directors, Press, MPs, Lords, Welsh AMs, Affiliated Badger Groups, Additional Contacts, Non Affiliated Groups, Other Organisations, Supporters with Email
Subject: Another Blunder Over Welsh Badgers
Mistake reveals the politics of the blunderbuss, says Badger Trust.
The Welsh Assembly Government has published yet another blatantly misleading mistake over bovine tuberculosis. Last month it had to retract a claim that killing badgers would reduce herd infections by 50 percent but in its apology claimed:
Previous trials [not listed] have shown that culling badgers can reduce TB in cattle. Benefits could be seen in six months. [1]
However, only in January 2010 it said:
Our aim is to eradicate TB from the [Intensive Action Pilot Area]. This will take years to achieve and it could go up in the short term. It may take up to three years before we see a reduction in TB cattle in the area [2].
David Williams, the chairman of the Badger Trust, said: ¿It is shameful that the WAG proposes the protracted slaughter of thousands of badgers apparently with no clear idea of what benefits, if any, could be expected. Even the latest apology has no foundation in science. The broad policy proposals have been missold to the public and, crucially, to farmers.
¿The subject ¿ and the badgers ¿ deserve careful science, not the politics of the blunderbuss¿.
Ends
CONTACT:
Jack Reedy
01564 783129
0775 173 1107
NOTES:
[1] http://wales.gov.uk/publications/accessinfo/drnewhomepage/environmentdrs2/2010/bovinetbleaflet/?lang=en
[2] In a written statement by Elin Jones, Rural Affairs Minister on January 13, 2010.”
by Wayne, Upper Halliford
Wednesday, December 22 2010, 6:26PM
“I'm amazed at the stupidity of the ASA. THOUSANDS of people complained about the Paddy Power advertisement where a cat wearing a bell is supposedly kicked by a blind footballer and yet they did nothing about it. And now, after just two - yes, TWO - complaints from the Farmers Union of Wales, the ASA fall over backwards to ban adverts calling for the culling of badgers to stop.
So... how many complaints to you DOES it take to actually stop animal cruelty, ASA?!!”
by Yvonne Anthony, Somerset
Wednesday, December 22 2010, 2:30PM
“Subject: Welsh Assembly Government make CATASTROPHIC ERROR ON 25000 leaflets/letters TO RESIDENTS
Welsh by birth with many connections still in Wales, I write as someone who has taken an interest in the subject of the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) wanting to kill thousands of badgers and the expensive mistakes they have made in the past. This one tops them all, yet there is no sign of them attempting to make good a truly catastrophic error on a leaflet/letter sent to 25,000 homes in the key intensive Action Area in Pembrokeshire. I suppose this is one way of getting the result you want but what happened to truth, apologies and democracy??? But unfortunately no equivalent to the Advertising Standards Authority has offered to put this blatant error right.
Published by WAG a statement which says:
"Previous trials have shown that culling badgers can reduce TB in cattle, by as much as 50% in six months This should have read:
"Previous trials have shown that culling badgers can reduce TB in cattle. Culling can start to show a benefit in six months.
WAG should now do the honorable thing and cancel their culling policy or at least attempt a new consultation in which perhaps they might even be tempted to do away with their tunnel vision attitude and they could start to seriously consider vaccination of both cattle and badgers !!!
If I had no understanding of bTB etc., and read the above statement in an official WAG document, sent me in the post by WAG, I would believe them, THE ISSUE IS NOW SO COMPROMISED BY WAG THAT THEY MUST CANCEL.
Talk about bias, Secret World Wildlife Rescue were unfortunately telling the truth, no embellishments, no half truths and in no way should they be penalised for telling the public
What is really going to happen. It is a great pity they don't have the political clout the Welsh NFU have, I only hope the rest of the welsh public can recognise what is going on.
Sincerely
Yvonne Anthony
.....................................................................................................................................................
To validate the information here is a copy of a Press Release by the Badger Trust:
From: Badger Trust Press
Date: 12/17/2010 4:28:48 PM
Subject: ..Welsh Assembly Government Error in Leaflet
For Immediate Release
Friday 17th December 2010
Subject: Welsh Assembly Government Error in Leaflet
The Welsh Assembly Government¿s (WAG) should repeat its resurrected public consultation about its proposal to kill badgers. The Badger Trust says a serious mistake in 25,000 official leaflets made the consultation ¿ its second attempt ¿ invalid.
A Welsh Assembly Government statement said last month [1] that an ¿error occurred in the editing¿ of a sentence in the leaflet (also referred to as a letter) sent to homes in the key Intensive Action Area in Pembrokeshire where WAG proposes to kill several thousand badgers in an attempt to control cattle tuberculosis.
The statement said: ¿The sentence in question reads, ¿Previous trials have shown that culling badgers can reduce TB in cattle, by as much as 50% in six months¿. This should have read ¿Previous trials have shown that culling badgers can reduce TB in cattle. Culling can start to show a benefit in six months¿.¿
David Williams, chairman of the Badger Trust, said: ¿This error is unforgivable for a national government supposedly offering reliable guidance to constituents responding to its consultation. The Badger Trust¿s own response [2] exposes many other misinterpretations of science in the WAG consultation document.
"WAG has already had to climb down once and this is its second attempt at a consultation following the Badger Trust¿s successful Appeal Court action during the summer to stop its killing plans. Now we demand at least a third attempt to conduct a fairer consultation, or at best the complete scrapping of its misg”
by Jan Curtis, West Devon
Wednesday, December 22 2010, 11:58AM
“We have been killing badgers now since 1975, in one guise or another.
11.000 badgers were killed in the Random Badger culling trials,(RBCT) the science produced by these trials, recommended that a cull would not be of any benefit in the long term, and advised against it.
To say that the statements made in the leaflets from Secret World were not valid because they were only the opinion of the center is ludicrous, isn't it also true then, that to believe that culling badgers would solve the problem is also an opinion held by the other side, and should be discounted.
Why are the pro cull people the only ones allowed an opinion.
I have spoken to a lot of farmers in the last few months, and none of them have read the consultation document, and none of them had looked at the report put out by the Independent Science group, on the RBCT, so how can they be well informed.
At a meeting held by the NFU in my area, none of the farmers present had read the documents, they were relying on the NFU to tell them what to do. To busy they said, with this sort of attitude what chance do we have.
Culling badgers in Ireland has not reduced the TB problem.
The incidence of bTB has actually reduced in hot spot areas since the introduction of compulsory pre-movement testing.
What we need now is enforced bio security, and good on farm hygiene practice to bring the problem properly under control.
Only a small number of badgers are actually sick with this disease, as shown in the RBCT.
It is time we allowed those farmers that want to the opportunity to vaccinate their cows, a little protection in the national herd would be better than none, I know that this is not permitted under EU directive, but for those farms that do not export it should be permitted.
We should also be concentrating on the TB test itself which is only 80% accurate, and cows are still turning up in abattoirs with the disease, it is a fact that 17% of all new cases are found at slaughter.
These cows left in the system by an inaccurate test, go on and take the disease with them until they are killed.
I cannot understand why Secret World is being penalised like this for speaking the truth, its time to wake up, this is primarily a bovine disease, and unless we tackle it properly and sensibly in the cow itself we will not win this battle.
I am not speaking as a member of any group or organisation, but as a retired farmer in hot spot area.
I leave the judgement to others.”