Wildlife Health Challenge
21 September 2007
The National Gamekeepers' Organisation has challenged the Government to take wildlife health issues more seriously.
In a response to a Defra consultation 'Working Towards a Wildlife Health Strategy', the NGO said that certain dangerous and costly wildlife diseases, such as TB, were going largely unmanaged, while others, such as Bird Flu and Foot and Mouth were sometimes over-managed or mismanaged to the point of causing chaos.
Gamekeepers could help, said the NGO, because as front line wildlife managers they are often the first to notice new or spreading diseases. But by the same token they may also be at higher risk of contracting illnesses such Lyme disease, which can move from wildlife into humans.
The NGO said it was particularly concerned by one question in the consultation document asking whether the release of native species should be regulated or licenced in some way. "The release of gamebirds is crucial to the UK rural economy and we see no evidence whatsoever that it should be limited or bureaucratised in any way", said the NGO.
But the organisation gave an overall welcome to Government's intention to do more in the field of wildlife health and pledged the support of gamekeepers for initiatives that would make gambirds and their keepers less vulnerable to debilitating illnesses.