The Fur Seal – victim of possibly the most emotive culling.
A recent post on the culling of rabbits on Robin Island, prompted a quick look at news items on culling over the last month. This revealed a variety of motivations for culling, very different numbers culled and a range in the opposition to the culls. The culling of a quarter of a million dairy cows in an attempt to raise milk prices with almost no protest is the outlier in the group.
40,000 Domestic Goats and Sheep in Netherlands
The Dutch government is culling 40,000 goats and sheep this month in an attempt to limit the spread of Q fever, an animal-borne disease that can cause flu-like symptoms in people. It is believed that Q fever has caused six human deaths in the Netherlands in 2009.It is expected that up to 120,000 will need to be culled to halt the disease. This is prompting protests from at least one animal rights protestor – Bridget Bardot sees the cull as “out of proportion to the impact of the disease”.
3,000 Camels in Australia
The culling follows on the “invasion” of the small town of Docker River in Australia by wild camels. The camels entered the town in search of water, causing damage to property and scaring residents. The camels will be shot from helicopters by hired marksmen, with the carcass being left to decompose on the land.
There has been a discussion about how humane the culling is and whether it’s not possible to utilise the camel. The hunters maintain the shooting is carried out humanely and that they take care to check that all animals are dead and an abattoir owner who offered to collect and slaughter the animals seems to be ignored.
1,300 Deer in Pennsylvania
The National Park Service has planned, after years of heated debate and a congressional mandate, to cull 1,300 of the deer overrunning Valley Forge. The deers grazing is “throwing the park’s environmental balance out of whack”, destroying neighbouring suburban gardens as well as causing automobile accidents. The culling to a stable population of 175 would minimise these problems and would be carried out in night shoots by marksmen with silenced rifles.
However, protests from animal-rights activists have lead to a pending lawsuit which with the difficulty of culling in winter has lead to the cull being delayed.
80 wolves in Sweden
Some 80 wolves will be hunted in Sweden this winter, for the first time in 45 years. The objective is to control increases in the population since they nearly died out in the 1970s.
The number of wolves in Sweden, thought to be around 200, has raised concerns because they have been seen near towns and cities, including Stockholm, and there have been reports of attacks on pets.
Thousands of Kangaroos
Kangaroos will be slaughtered in a cull at the Puckapunyal Army base in Australia, a move that has outraged animal welfare campaigners. Although the number to be culled has not been revealed 27,000 kangaroos were culled at Puckapunyal in 2002.
Campaigners talk of young kangaroos being “ripped from their mother’s pouch and bashed to death”, but the DSE (Department of Sustainability and Environment) said the kangaroos at Puckapunyal were at risk of starvation and it had chosen the most humane option possible to keep their number at a sustainable level.
All stray dogs in Bali
The governor of Bali, Made Mangku Pastika, has directed that the extermination of ownerless dogs should be continued and be accelerated in an attempt to control the spread of rabies. It is estimated that this could effect the almost half million stray dogs.
Bali’s animal rights groups argue that the elimination of stray dog populations is an ineffective way to halt the spread of the rabies and called for an increased vaccination of dogs. The difficulty is the cost of the vaccination and the fact that a series of vaccinations is required which is impossible with strays.
A Quarter of a Million Dairy Cows in USA
All of these are small compared to the National Milk Producers Federation’s “herd retirement program” which seeks to manage milk production in the USA.
Since the economic downturn the US Dairy industry has culled almost a quarter of a million dairy cows in an attempt to control the over production and related price drop of milk as the consumption plummeted.
There appears to be little opposition in the USA to this activity. Most of the industry protests coming from farmers who are not satisfied with the poor economic state of the industry rather than the culling of cows. Overseas there have been complaints from beef farmers who find their markets being flooded with cheap low quality meat products resulting from the cull.
Photograph by winkyintheuk on Flickr under a creative commons license.
Let’s look at this culling of cows for a minute.
Imagine a Sustainable solution.
First you ask the question is milk more expensive than any other place in the world?
If it is, then cull.
If it isn’t then you might think of developing a bell curve of costs for the individual dairy farmers who produce milk to a standard of quality but at the lowest cost and still make a profit. What is their break even cost?
The Sustainable approach. Or a Sustainable approach would be to find those dairy farmers who produce milk at the standard of quality and the lowest possible cost and do what you can to help them to continue to produce as much milk as possible.
Those ultra low cost producers could have their output segregated out of the fresh milk category and moved to the powdered milk category. For Export!!! You do know we have a balance of trade problem and we have people starving!!!
I know I am oversymplifying but this Eco Worldly —- should be a place where outside the box thinking is needed.