Animal death toll passes two million
3 April 2001
Animal death toll passes two million
by John Burns
MORE than two million animals have been killed or are awaiting slaughter after being entered into schemes designed to control foot-and-mouth disease.
The total number of animals slaughtered or identified as being for slaughter by the Ministry of Agriculture because of foot-and-mouth has reached 1,010,000.
Almost 4000 farmers have applied to enter a further 1,270,000 animals into a foot-and-mouth Welfare Disposal Scheme run by the Intervention Board.
That scheme is for healthy livestock suffering animal welfare problems because they cannot be moved off farms due to foot-and-mouth restrictions.
Despite the vast number of animals entered into the scheme, only 31,811 have been killed. They include some 10,000 sheep, 1600 cattle and 3200 pigs.
David Younger of the Intervention Board, which administers the scheme, said he expected faster progress now permission had been given to bury carcasses.
After a weekend of confusion, the government said carcasses from cattle less than five-years-old could be buried despite fears that doing so may spread BSE.
Mr Younger said the State Veterinary Service would decide which livestock were most at risk from welfare problems and which animals should be killed first.
But Andy Lebrecht, head of Ministry of Agriculture in Devon, denied that the scheme was run by MAFF which is responsible for the veterinary service.
He also insisted that allocation of disposal facilities was not MAFFs responsibility. The board controlled its own separate sites, he insisted.
Complaints that farmers could not get through to the Intervention Board to book in animals for the scheme were being addressed, said Mr Younger.
A telephone queuing system was introduced at Newcastle on Monday (2 April) and more phone lines are expected to be installed by Friday (6 April).
Currently only 30 phone-lines in the call centre deal with the 1500 calls received daily from farmers wanting to enter animals into the slaughter scheme.