Suffolk has bluetongue, is live exports to blame?
sarah greene | 25.09.2007 16:59 | Animal Liberation | Cambridge
So, Suffolk has the first case of bluetongue ever found in the UK!
Let’s take a look at this in more detail …. live calves were exported out of Ipswich Port over to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Spain, from 3rd September 2007 for a two week period, during which time the dirty smelly lorries returned to the UK via Ipswich Port to collect the next load of calves from the Scottish Borders and the West Country.
Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm where bluetongue disease has been detected is just off the A14 and the farm has a river running though it. The river runs straight from the Port and the lorries would have used the A14 road.
A week later we have bluetongue within 6 miles of the Port and a stone’s throw from the A14. Midges could have easily been transported back to the UK via a dirty lorry from Europe.
Bluetongue has been traveling its way up through Northern Europe in recent years. Experts are saying the midges were blown over due to the warmer weather. If this is indeed the case, why were these midges not blown over when it was warm, unlike now? It is late September and temperatures are not particularly warm. Surely if these midges were blown over the Channel they would have landed in the south first and not inland in the east.
Is this a bit of a co-incidence or just bad luck?
Let’s take a look at this in more detail …. live calves were exported out of Ipswich Port over to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Spain, from 3rd September 2007 for a two week period, during which time the dirty smelly lorries returned to the UK via Ipswich Port to collect the next load of calves from the Scottish Borders and the West Country.
Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm where bluetongue disease has been detected is just off the A14 and the farm has a river running though it. The river runs straight from the Port and the lorries would have used the A14 road.
A week later we have bluetongue within 6 miles of the Port and a stone’s throw from the A14. Midges could have easily been transported back to the UK via a dirty lorry from Europe.
Bluetongue has been traveling its way up through Northern Europe in recent years. Experts are saying the midges were blown over due to the warmer weather. If this is indeed the case, why were these midges not blown over when it was warm, unlike now? It is late September and temperatures are not particularly warm. Surely if these midges were blown over the Channel they would have landed in the south first and not inland in the east.
Is this a bit of a co-incidence or just bad luck?
sarah greene
e-mail:
info@eaarc.com
Homepage:
http://www.eaarc.com
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
More to come
25.09.2007 18:44
come onto the scene the most infamous is the tiger version. (Zanzare Tigra)
It's only the last five or six years and some places are invested with them, they operate in the afternoon from about 17:00 so it's hard to protect yourself, your kid goes out and comes back covered in bites. From time to time there is also a small blond version that is active all day. So they seem to work in shifts we can defend our selves from the one at night with nets but the day time versions make a killing.
It wasn't like this a few years ago.
Sure, you could say that it's paranoia but when you see your friends pets dieing off it starts to get serious for
another new species kills dogs and cats by laying it's eggs in the animal which subsequently dies a real horrible death, even if the owner catches it in time it costs 1000's in vets bills and the animal never fully recovers.
As the winters get milder we are going to get loads more tropical insects with all the problems associated
it's already happening in southern europe but it's all way beyond the corporate press.
The UK might get a bit of protection from the channel but it only takes one big tropical storm in the summer
months and it's all going to to blow across and a few thousand Labradors and retrievers all suddenly drop dead
people might start getting the gist of global warming then.
Not to mention locusts which blow into central Italy on the african winds (Scirocco ?) they don't arrive in any great numbers, but if a few can get here then whats to stop a few hundred million taking the trip ?
Zanzare
blue tongue
25.09.2007 20:30
but im pissed and i dont get pissed often enough lol
tin foiled one
bluetongue
26.09.2007 12:22
Oliver Greene