A delightful surprise visitor to the garden yesterday, a female Beautiful Demoiselle. She had moved on by the time I came back with my camera but this is a male I photographed in April 2024.
A second wolf pack has been euthanised whilst we wait for the enquiry into the killing of the pack in Kent – which is taking far too long. The leader of the Dundee pack was apparently suffering from complications from an operation and after his death the other four exhibited “unusually anxious and abnormal behaviour”, which is hardly surprising. This just makes it all the clearer that wolves should never be kept in captivity.
Dundee zoo ‘heartbroken’ after wolf pack euthanised – BBC News
PETA announces the banning of forced swim tests in Ireland in “many cases”, which is a start. They can no longer be used for studies of human depression and anxiety, a concept which is utterly ridiculous in the first place. What is there possibly to be learnt? Under pressure there is more good news – Etsy has banned fur.
The Humane Society International reminds us that pointless lethal dose tests are still in use in spite of non-animal, faster and more efficient methods being readily available.
Protect the Wild reveal that NatureScot not only licences the Guga hunt (passim) but in the first three months of this year spent £72,000 on it. This includes £30,000 on research (surely unnecessary), and more on legal advice and security but does not even include staff time or other regular expenses. All for the benefit of ten men carrying out a barbaric, traditional, ritualistic slaughter of Gannet chicks.
The local puppy situation has worsened yet again – the perpetrator was witnessed trying to sell one of the inbred puppies in a pub environment, which is illegal as well as immoral in several ways. He has been warned not to do so again. I have no idea if he has been approached following my report to the West Berkshire Council but suspect that they are so financially strapped and understaffed that there is little they can do. And I don’t see what more I can do. A friend advised, in a kind way, that this was not really my problem but I have spent so much of my life advocating for animals that I cannot ignore something like this, which I find scuzzy and vain as well of course as hugely cruel. The whole point is to speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves.
The Labour government has let us down yet again in terms of wildlife and the environment or at least seems set to do so. Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, has privately opposed rewilding projects including the reintroduction of the Lynx. She has pledge £1m to bring back Golden Eagles which as I have said is pretty pointless unless something is done about raptor persecution from grouse moors. Accusing her of greenwashing, Paul O’Donoghue of the Lynx UK Trust has said: “The conduct of the government is appalling and duplicitous.”
A prolific American ‘big game’ hunter, Ernie Dosio, has been killed by elephants (five females with a calf) whilst tracking antelopes in central Africa. We see a horror show of stuffed heads mounted on the walls of his house. I will just say “Karma” and leave it at that.
I recommend a remarkable three-part documentary Secret Africa: Life in the Wild from Channel 4. Lucy Shepherd has led many expeditions and this records her journey across Tanzania to the Serengeti, on foot. She is a slender figure possessed of almost unimaginable resilience. She travels with members of the Hadza and Akie tribes. This is no self-indulgence with the fake perilss and deadlines of so many of these programmes – it’s real adventure, with very real dangers from wildlife and terrain. She gains the respect of her fellow travellers who know what it takes to survive in that part of the world. And she always respects the wildlife. When elephants are about, they take another track and don’t waste time about it. Lions are also a serious threat.
Sometimes the most powerful words need not be complicated. Lucy is taken to see some rock paintings which are over 40,000 years old, some of them depicting elephants, antelopes and giraffes. It inspires her to say this (the italics are mine):
“But what once roamed free have been pushed into distant corners, their paths cut off as the land fills with farms and fields. Without wildlife corridors, there’s no way for the animals to move freely. It’s the crazy thing isn’t it? 40,000 years ago, in terms of the history of this world, it’s absolutely nothing, but the planet has just changed so much in the last hundred years … in the last ten, fifteen years. Just the rapid rate of growth is insane … I think it’s really good to get back to … doing these things, being part of the environment and remembering … where we all came from … What makes us all human is … we’re all on this Earth and we all need this Earth. Sometimes we just don’t realise it. We have to look after it.”
The picture at the head of this post is from my own trip to Tanzania, taken from the safety of a jeep and with the promise of luxurious camps every evening. Although I do remember a certain unease as four adult male lions made their way slowly past the vehicle, no more than a few feet away.
Leave a Reply