Results 1-20 of 115 for badgers all

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Wildlife Protection (7 Nov 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a challenging disease to control and eradicate. I am acutely aware of the financial and emotional trauma associated with a TB breakdown. It causes significant hardship for farmers and farming families, and I am fully committed to the objectives of the Bovine TB Eradication Strategy which aims to reduce and ultimately eradicate this disease in Ireland. This...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Wildlife Protection (7 Nov 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a challenging disease to control and eradicate. I am acutely aware of the financial and emotional trauma associated with a TB breakdown. It causes significant hardship for farmers and farming families, and I am fully committed to the objectives of the Bovine TB Eradication Strategy which aims to reduce and ultimately eradicate this disease in Ireland. This...

Written Answers — Animal Diseases: Animal Diseases (17 Dec 2008)

Brendan Smith: I propose to take Questions Nos. 592 to 594, inclusive, together. All badgers captured are subject to a gross post mortem. However, due to the low sensitivity of the technique, the Department carries out pooled tissue culturing on a percentage of all badgers captured (currently approximately 2,500) across all of the DVOs. Culturing a pooled sample, which involves mixing tissue extracted...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Culls (25 Apr 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: My Department does not use snares to capture badgers. Our operatives use stopped body restraints under licence from the National Parks and Wildlife service. No badgers were found dead in stopped body restraints and all badgers in the attached spreadsheet were dispatched in accordance with the terms of our licence from the National Parks and Wildlife service. Badger vaccination is now an...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Diseases (14 Dec 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: Bovine tuberculosis (TB), caused by infection with Mycobacterium bovis, is a persistent problem in cattle herds in Ireland. The epidemiology of TB is complex and challenging. There are three main sources of infection for cattle - the purchase of infected cattle, the presence of residual (undetected) infection within cattle herds and from wildlife (badgers predominately). The relative...

Written Answers — Badger Monitoring: Badger Monitoring (12 Jan 2011)

Brendan Smith: My Department's overall national strategy for the eradication of TB provides for a comprehensive range of measures, including the mandatory annual testing for all cattle in the national herd, the restriction of holdings where reactors are disclosed, risk-based testing of herds contiguous to infected herds, the early removal of reactors and a wildlife programme involving the targeted removal...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Diseases (9 Mar 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: Bovine tuberculosis (TB), caused by infection with Mycobacterium bovis, is a persistent problem in cattle herds in Ireland. The epidemiology of TB is complex and challenging. There are three main sources of infection for cattle - the purchase of infected cattle, the presence of residual (undetected) infection within cattle herds and from wildlife (badgers predominately),. The relative...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Culls (11 Oct 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: I would like to clarify that my Department does not use snares for the capture of badgers. All badgers captured are caught using a stopped body restraint. Badgers that are dispatched, are done so in a humane manner, either by the use of a licensed firearm or by the administration of IV barbiturates by a Veterinary Inspector. All badger carcasses are sent to either the Irish Equine Centre or...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Culls (27 Feb 2018)

Michael Creed: ...operating protocols, where herds are identified with a serious outbreak of bovine tuberculosis, and where my Department’s epidemiological investigations into the cause of the breakdown implicates badgers as a possible source, a capturing program is set up in the local area. The aims of the program are to manage the local population of badgers downward to mitigate badger to cattle...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Wildlife Protection (24 Nov 2020)

Charlie McConalogue: The Department has detailed procedures on how sites are surveyed and treated. These are in relation to both badger vaccination which is the predominant activity and badger removal. The process for removal is initiated by a veterinary epidemiological investigation detailing the requirement for a wildlife intervention. Thereafter, the Department's wildlife officers follow procedures in...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Tuberculosis Eradication Programme (24 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: In 2018, a policy of vaccination of badgers against tuberculosis (TB) was added as an integral part of the bovine TB eradication programme following successful field trials carried out in Ireland. Given the technical expertise and logistics involved, it took several months to scale up the badger vaccination programme. From a rate of approximately 1,000 badger vaccinations per year during the...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Culls (7 Sep 2018)

Michael Creed: The numbers of badgers culled annually are published as part of the Annual Report of the National Parks and Wildlife Service of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, and I attach for the Deputy’s convenience the figures for 2015 and 2016 extracted from those Annual Reports – tables 1 and 2 below. While the figures for 2017 are not yet published, I am in a...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Culls (10 Oct 2018)

Michael Creed: Field trials testing the effectiveness of badger vaccination as an alternative to removal were conducted from 2014 to 2017 in areas where the wildlife program had been running in excess of 5 years and where local densities of badgers were considered low enough to be suitable candidates for vaccination with BCG. The findings confirmed that vaccination of badgers can play a role in reducing...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Culls (31 May 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: For the purpose of clarity, all badgers captured are caught using a stopped body restraint. My Department does not deploy snares. Badgers that are culled, are done so in a humane manner, either by the use of a licensed firearm or by the administration of barbiturates by a Departmental Veterinary Inspector. All badger carcasses are sent to either a contracted private or my Department's...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Diseases (27 Jul 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: The total spent on badger vaccination in the past ten years in County Wicklow: The information requested is not readily available. DAFM’s Wildlife Programme is delivered by 16 Regional Veterinary offices throughout the country (RVOs). It involves the use of civilian operatives, equipment and supplies (e.g. restraints, anaesthetic, vaccination (BCG)) which are provided to DAFM under...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Diseases (9 Mar 2023)

Charlie McConalogue: ...national exchequer expenditure. The TB eradication programme underpins the export of dairy and beef products to the value of €9.3 billion in 2022. The epidemiology of TB is complex and challenging. There are three main sources of infection for cattle, the purchase of infected cattle, the presence of residual (undetected) infection within cattle herds. and wildlife (badgers...

Written Answers — Bovine Diseases: Bovine Diseases (1 Feb 2005)

Mary Coughlan: I propose to take Questions Nos. 240 to 242, inclusive, together. Various scientific investigations into the role of badgers in the spread of bovine TB have concluded that there is a link between infected badgers and the transmission and spread of the disease. The first study of the effect of the removal of badgers on the incidence of bovine TB took place in east Offaly in the 1980s and early...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Eradication of TB: Discussion (13 Dec 2023)

...Barrett: I will take the question on vaccination. Deputy Fitzmaurice asked how much vaccination is going on. I will also mention culling. This year to date we have captured more than 8,000 badgers for vaccination. This is an increase from approximately 1,900 in 2019. Since 2019, apart from 2020 when there was a reduction because of Covid, we have been culling between 5,000 and 6,000...

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Animal Disease Controls (23 Sep 2014)

Simon Coveney: ...has been developed in response to research conducted over many years which has demonstrated that the eradication of the disease is not a practicable proposition until the reservoir of infection in badgers is addressed. Capturing of badgers takes place under Section 34 of the 1976 Wildlife Act in areas where serious outbreaks of TB have been identified in cattle herds and where Department...