Livestock Diseases and Farmification

The opposition to cattle on Blacka Moor began in 2001, the year of the big Foot and Mouth outbreak. The countryside was closed down, appalling scenes of livestock slaughter and pyres of carcasses sent evil smoke all over the country. In Sheffield like much of the countryside you couldn't use any footpaths for ages. Even the large area of Blacka Moor with no livestock could not be used by walkers - because, according to the Public Rights of Way office sometimes sheep got out from the pasture land!!

Once you bring farming practices to an area of land it changes it for ever. Partly it's the fences (barbed wire!!!), partly the animals themselves but more even than those it's the priorities. These immediately become industrial priorities and people and nature itself are well behind in the consideration. Some innocence is lost.



Now we have the threat of Blue Tongue, now in Holland, spread by midges from warmer climes and much more likely with climate change. The midges prefer cattle but will attack sheep if no cows are present. The movement controls and exclusion zones are more serious than with F&M.

Conservationists like SWT and English Nature quite like exclusions and closing down of footpaths although they are getting more careful about admitting it. Sheffield's Ecology Officer once enthused in my presence about the closing down of Stanage Edge in 2001 because the quietness allowed another pair of ring ouzels to nest undisturbed.