As many of you may be aware, Amy Brant (TB tester) and Charlotte Harrison (Senior Farm Vet) are key members of the North Oxfordshire Cluster Pilot Scheme, sitting as chairs on the board. A local government funded initiative involving Hook Norton Vets, local farmers, local wildlife control agents, APHA, DEFRA, NFU and Natural England collaborating to take greater control of Bovine TB in the area. They have even made it into Farmers Weekly!
One of the projects the group are focusing on is the possibility of bTB transmission between deer & cattle. There is a local effort to sample culled deer in order to assess prevalence of deer and the possible presence of bTB in the local deer population. At present, data from the Exmoor project suggests some transition may be possible and present but we have no figures for our local area.
Due to the success of the last deer training days ran at Cornbury Park in order to facilitate this project, we will be offering two more dates – 20th & 24th January 2024!
For those that missed the last Deer training days, the steering group has developed a plan to support local farmers to better understand this issue, upskill local stakeholders and improve the reporting of suspicion of bTB in wild deer.
The group are offering free training days for anyone involved in deer management within the cluster area to learn how to identify and report visible signs that might be indicative of bTB in wild deer.
If you would like more information on the Deer Training days or what the North Oxfordshire Cluster Pilot Scheme are involved in/how you could be involved, please contact Amy or Charlotte or register for training courses/sign up for updates via the following email – oxfordshirecluster.project@defra.gov.uk
For more information from Defra on Bovine TB, please follow this link – https://www.gov.uk/guidance/bovine-tb
