This is terrible to write knowing that the spread has escalted to the scale it is now but our Government has decided that from tomorrow they will start to move uninfected livestock to approved abbatoirs.
Once an application has been made from a farmer in an unrestricted area and that has been approved they are given 24 hours for their animals to be put in disinfected lorries and transported to approved abbatoirs, killed and processed.(The shortest incubation period for Foot and Mouth is 36 hours, so anyone can work out that what appears to be healthy animals may be very contagious by the time they reach their destination)
In a sane world this seems like madness. It can only mean that they have lost the chain of infection and need to clear as much meat as is possible before all hell breaks loose.
They did a similar thing in the sixties - told everyone it was safe to move animals as they thought the outbreak was over - then several more cases came to light. This time we are not even pretending that the peak has been reached.
Many are seeing this as a purely financial desicion, some as a real desire to help farmers. I'd like to believe the latter but they are playing with fire....unless they know more than we do about the true extent of the situation.
Today has been the worst of all so far, I can hardly believe it myself, but we are up to 69 confirmed cases - 18 new cases in one day.
Friends of mine are 3 miles away from the case on Dartmoor and spent most of last night saying goodbye to their animals, they can't believe they will be disease free for long.
There are nearly 250 thousand sheep and cows on Dartmoor.
I just don't know what else to say at the moment - there are still people breaking the law to see the fires burning, still people breaking the law by claiming their rights to walk on common land with their dogs and still animal rights organisations prepared to march, many of them from rural communities, in protest of farming methods. I will continue to keep you updated but am running out of words to describe the situation.