Vulpines, vicars and vets
Vulpes vulpes, the Red Fox, whose clownish-looking but sadistic persecutors continue to hunt them at will (although with a little less impunity than in the past) is getting no help from certain members of the clergy and the veterinary profession. Protect the Wild quite rightly wonders why clergymen continue to bless hunts and welcome hounds to their churches. One asked God to make their day “fruitful” which can only mean one thing in the context. The Church of England’s wishy-washy response revealed a profound ignorance of the reality of trail hunting at best. “We believe that God has given us a responsibility towards sentient beings with whom we share God’s world. The Bible teaches us that God has given us ‘dominion’ not ‘domination’ over animals (Genesis 1:26). This means ‘loving care’ not ‘ruthless exploitation’.” The two words are in fact pretty much synonymous. ‘Dominon’ does not mean loving care and “domination” does not mean ruthless exploitation. It’s a pathetic attempt at pedantic semantics which doesn’t actually make any sense. It seems high time that the CofE follows other major landowners and simply bans any form of hunting from its vast landholdings, about which it is of course extremely secretive. I happened to read that Archbishop Welby is being permitted to continue to live at Lambeth Palace (for up to six months) in spite of his “resignation”. Again, this seems mealy-mouthed in the extreme – this was hardly an honourable resignation, it was an extremely reluctant one following the exposure of his part in the covering up of child abuse. We know from his speech afterwards that he feels no remorse or shame about his actions, or lack of them, but that he is permitted to continue to live in luxury seems like yet another profound insult to the victims of those appalling crimes by members of the church.
Members of The Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management are surely a disgrace to their profession. Founded by Richard Allen and Dr Lewis Thomas, the organisation began life as Vets for Hunting. Allen himself hunted with the Thurlow Hunt and was involved in deeply dodgy, highly controversial animal breeding experiments, in the world of horse racing in particular. Hunting, they say, is humane and natural. As for the badger cull, if shooting is cruel, then let’s gas them instead (they really do advocate this).
Bill Bailey
I had been looking forward to this, My Animals and Other Animals, Quercus, 2024, having enjoyed his book about birds and as a fan of his stand-up comedy. I don’t doubt that he is a kind and decent person, but whoever this book is aimed at, it definitely isn’t me. I have not read all of it and am not sure I will but he lost me on the first page of part one in his advocacy of zoos which he thinks have earned their place in society allowing us to “see, hear and smell animals … that we will never get from a documentary.” Anthropocentrism unbridled – there seems to be no consideration of the cost to the imprisoned victims, only to the potential benefits to humans. I am also disappointed that he seems to make no acknowledgement of his debt in terms of the book’s title to Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals, published in 1956. It is possible that I just haven’t got to that part yet, but the preface would have been the prime place for it. I won’t spend too long on this book – as I say I am clearly not the target audience and don’t wish to be too acidic, but there seems to be a surfeit of anecdotal but rather ordinary stories about cats and dogs, including an entire chapter about the theft by two of his pets of a sandwich. He tries to explain how a chameleon appears to change its colouring but what he has written doesn’t really follow or make sense. There is no reason not to have a tortoise in the UK, he says. Whether it is cruel to do so (they are wild animals after all) is arguable but certainly obtaining one from a reputable breeder with the necessary paperwork is not enough. Surely there should be some mention of the specialist care and expertise which tortoises require and that increasing demand for these creatures drives up illegal wildlife trafficking. He also describes Central Park Zoo as “a great little zoo”. It is a very long time since I visited but it doesn’t seem to have changed much. It broke my heart to see the inmates in such dreadful confinement and ill health. Polar bears and pinnipeds in Manhattan. Just why? And he mentions dancing bears – yes, he acknowledges the cruelty involved but he doesn’t seem to have researched it fully. It isn’t just the ropes through their noses and mouths by which they are painfully hauled up, all too often their training involves developing a Pavovlian response to certain music which they associate with being forced to ‘dance’ on a hotplate.
Zonkeys
And while I’m at it, just why, following my working out of a crossword clue this morning, do zonkeys, zdonks or zebrasses exist? The words for these crosses never sound right (tigon, liger) and these three all refer to the hybrid offspring of a male zebra and a female donkey. Apparently this does occur very, very occasionally in the wild, but it was our early nineteenth-century experiments in the United States that produced them outside of any natural environment so that we could exploit them.
Raptor decoys
Wild Justice continues its fight to have driven grouse shooting completely banned. Wildlife crime is sadly extremely difficult to prove and prosecute but they give six examples where there can be very little doubt: “Each of these posts is shocking; each is sad; each is an indictment of the grouse shooting industry. They are just a selection of the incidents that the grouse shooters don’t want the public to know about and don’t want you to remember.” Even Gold Eagles and Peregrine Falcons fall prey to the crimes which underpin this lucrative activity, and in particular Hen Harriers. Decoys are used to draw the birds in and Hen Harrier decoys are pretty specialised shopping list items, so it seems unlikely they would be used for anything else, just as it seems unlikely that an adult Golden Eagle, say, would have been predated. A website called Gun Mart advertises these decoys (owls, peregrines and kestrels are the most popular) and some even have flapping wings. “Choose the area carefully, place the decoy with thought, set up a good hide within range and you can have good sport dropping magpies and crows. Even jays will lose their cautiousness in their eagerness to join the ‘mob.’ ” This is not illegal but using decoys to lure birds of prey so that they can be murdered is.
Brocken spectre
This was the answer to another crossword clue. I had never heard of the phenomenon but was able to work out the answer once I had enough crossers knowing that it was anagrammatic. The name comes from the highest peak of the Harz Mountains in Germany. The Brocken bow or mountain spectre occurs when a figure is looking down from on high on a cloud bank or fog with the bright sun behind him or her, which produces a huge shadow, sometimes with an aura or halo. It is well worth checking out on Wikipedia.
Finally, a couple of asides. A reminder (I had somehow forgotten or blocked it out) that ivory does not just come from the tusks of elephants, but also from the tusks and teeth of hippos, walruses and whales. And I was amused to notice this morning watching the little flock of House Sparrows (maybe a dozen) at the feeders that the females are in charge, regularly pushing the males off, who have to then wait their turn. Other visitors in the last couple of hours included an adult Reed Bunting and a Greater Spotted Woodpecker. It was a momentary flash but I am pretty sure I saw a juvenile GSW too (on the basis of his or her size) which if true would be wonderful news – they have bred successfully although the timing would be way off. Are we seeing this happening thanks to warmer winters? I have seen juvenile Reed Buntings this year already (assuming I have identified them correctly). I need some expert advice on this but would have expected them to have been full-size and/or with more or less adult plumage if they were born last spring.
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