In Britain, the controversial mass cull of healthy animals in an effort to stamp out foot and mouth disease has begun, despite protests from farmers. The slaughter scheme began on two farms in the north of Scotland. Slaughter of healthy sheep from farms in the only infected part of Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway, is due to begin next week along with the cull of animals in areas rife with foot and mouth disease in the rest of the UK and Northern Ireland. The British Chief Veterinary Officer, Jim Scudamore, said that at least half a million animals faced being culled – farmers’ leaders spoke of double that figure. Tonight farmers’ groups, such as Farmers for Action, warned that if the cull was to go ahead some farmers would stop reporting suspected cases for fear of reprisals from neighbours.
There are now 297 confirmed cases in Britain and Northern Ireland. The British government’s response to the foot and mouth crisis has been described as “an unbelievable story of incompetence and lack of action.” Tory peer Lord Walker, a former agriculture minister, made his comments following a meeting with farmers in the Midlands today. Adding that he was shocked at what was about to happen Lord Walker said that the culling of healthy livestock is due to the “inability of the Ministry of Agriculture to handle the situation”.
The Department of Agriculture in the North has said that further laboratory tests have confirmed that a suspect sheep found in County Tyrone last Monday did not have foot and mouth disease. Fears of a second outbreak arose last Monday when a sheep apparently displaying symptoms of the disease was discovered at a meat plant in Dungannon, County Tyrone. It came from a flock of forty sheep on a farm in Augher, and was the only animal there to display the symptoms.
Samples from the suspect sheep were immediately sent for analysis to a laboratory in England, and preliminary results produced the following day indicated that the animal had not contracted foot and mouth. Since then, more intensive virology examinations have been carried out and today the North’s Department of Agriculture was able to confirm that the results were negative.
The all clear was welcomed with relief by the Stormont Agriculture Minister Brid Rodgers, who said the good news was a further milestone along the road to preventing the spread of the disease. She warned thought that it was still too early to relax the fortress farm restrictions which limited movement of livestock and led to the cancellation of many social and sporting events in the North, including much of the planned St Patrick’s Day events.
