We've moved, to http://creaturenews.blogspot.com. Hope you can join us over there! It's still taking shape at the moment.

Nothing against MSN Spaces - it's served us well - but we need the flexibility of layout that blogger gives us.

Also, take a look at our sister blog about wildlife photography at http://wildangleuk.blogspot.com.

I received this email a couple of days ago, shown below. 47,474 people left feedback!

"Dear Consultee,

CONTROLLING THE SPREAD OF BOVINE TB IN CATTLE IN HIGH INCIDENCE AREAS IN ENGLAND

Thank you for contributing your views to the consultation on  badger culling as part of the measures to control the spread of bovine TB in cattle in high incidence areas in England. Your comments on the proposed badger culling strategy will be taken into consideration along with the comments of other respondents.

A report will be produced summarising the responses to the consultation. This has taken longer than expected due to the large number of consultation responses received (47,474 responses were received during the consultation period).  We do not have a date for the final report but an announcement will be made when it is available.  Once published the report will be accessible  by following the link from the Defra website's Bovine TB Pages at <http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/index.htm>

No decision has yet been made on whether or not to cull badgers to help control bovine TB in cattle.  Ministers will consider all available evidence including the summary of consultation responses before making a decision.

Yours sincerely,

The bTB Wildlife Policy Team

Bovine TB and Badgers Consultation,
Defra
1a Page Street
London
SW1P 4PQ

Website: www.defra.gov.uk <http://www.defra.gov.uk>
Email: bTB.consultation@defra.gsi.gov.uk"

"It was like this: They announced over the radio that you couldn't take your cats. So we put her in the suitcase. But she didn't want to go, she climbed out. Scratched everyone. You can't take your belongings!"

"The soldiers killed the dogs. Just shot them. Bakh-bakh! After that I can't listen to something that's alive and screaming."

"I'd come up to the window, look down, and cross myself. I thought I heard a horse. A rooster. I felt terrible. Sometimes I'd dream about my yard: I'd tie the cow up and milk it and milk it. I wake up."

"I had two cows and two calves, five pigs, geese, chicken. A dog. I'll take my head in my hands and just walk around the yard. And apples, so many apples! Everything's gone, all of it, like that, gone!"

"And the chickens had black cockscombs, not red ones, because of the radiation."

"The cattle hadn't had water in three days. No feed. That's it! A reporter came from the paper. The drunken milkmaids almost killed him."

"I walked for two weeks. I had my cow with me. They wouldn't let me in the house. I slept in the forest."

"Every day I'd dream of my house. I'm coming back to it: digging in the garden, or making my bed. And every time I find something: a shoe or a little chick. And everything was for the best, it made me happy. I'd be home soon..."

"I got in to see a doctor. 'Sweety,' I say, 'my legs don't move. The joints hurt.' 'You need to give up your cow, grandma. The milk's poisoned.' 'Oh no,' I say, 'my legs hurt, my knees hurt, but I won't give up the cow. She feeds me.'"

"I have two bags of salt. We'll be all right without the government! Plenty of logs - theres a whole forest around us. The house is warm. The lamp is burning. It's nice! I have a goat, a kid, three pigs, fourteen chickens. Land - as much as I want; grass - as much as I want. There's water in the well. And freedom! We're happy. This isn't a kolkhoz anymore, it's a commune. We need to buy another horse. And then we won't need anyone at all. Just one horsey."

"Sometimes a wild boar will come into the garden, sometimes a fox. But people only rarely. Just police."

"There was a rabid fox here during the spring - when they're rabid they become tender, real tender. But they can't look at water. Just put a bucket of water in your yard, and you're fine. She'll run away."

"And the cuckoo is cuckooing, the magpies are chattering, roes are running. Will they reproduce - who knows? One morning I looked out in the garden, the boars were digging. They were wild. You can resettle people, but the elk and the boar, you can't. And water doesn't listen to borders, it goes along the earth, and under the earth."

"They live along lakes, rivers, ditches and streams feeding on vegetation. Preyed on by mink and suffering the loss of their riverbank homes, their numbers have fallen dramatically. Urgent conservation action is needed to stop this charismatic creature becoming extinct.

 

Many people mistake water voles for brown rats and accidentally poison them or disturb their homes." [Equal rights for rats please!]

Ears: water vole has small, hidden ears, rat has big ears

Fur: water vole has silky mid-brown fur, rat has grey-brown fur (difficult, this distinction)

Nose: water vole has a blunt nose, rat has a pointed nose

Tail: water vole has a furry tail, shorter than the rat's long pink scaly hairless tail

 

"So the Natural History Museum and London Zoo spent the weekend scrapping about whose whale it was, as they were both trying to provide experts & vets so that their organisations could garner the attendant publicity. The Zoo won - probably something to do with having more expertise with living animals. Or so you would think. What you won't be hearing in Thursday's post-mortem is that the whale actually died shortly after being injected with sedatives. In short, it OD'd on ketamine. "