A quirky look at wildlife. To be taken with a pinch of
salt, but with more than a grain of truth!

Well, they get my vote anyway. For the last few weeks I have kept
seeing sorrowful eyes pleading with me. Some people are immune to this
pleading; others think it is sentimental tosh.

Looking at the distress of Seal mothers as their babies are
slaughtered; seeing baby Orangutans clinging desperately to their dead
mothers; watching Badgers at play outside their setts, oblivious to
their impending slaughter - you would need a heart of stone not to
feel it is wrong. The main reason for my concern is the barbaric
cruelty involved in the wholesale slaughter of innocent animals for
profit, or because they get in the way of profit. Three animals under
threat are in the spotlight - the Canadian (Harp and Hooded) Seals,
the Indonesian Orangutan and our own Badgers. All of them are in
trouble for very different reasons, most of them economic.

Hunt, Cull or Wholesale Slaughter?

The dictionary definitions of a cull are:

Cull, Culling

1. To pick out from others; select. 2. To gather; collect. 3. To
remove rejected members or parts from (a herd, for example). 4.
Veterinary medicine reduction of animal numbers: a reduction of the
numbers of an animal population achieved by killing some of its
members.

The dictionary definition of a Hunt is:

Hunting, hunt

The pursuit and killing or capture of wild animals regarded as a sport.
(Or out of necessity for food, perhaps?)

Though I believe in conservation, and I know that sometimes we have to
intervene, I also believe that wherever possible Nature left to
herself keeps a natural balance, except when human beings interfere
out of ignorance or for their own ends.

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business
better than we do.
- Michael de Montaigne
1533-1592

Surely mass slaughter of vulnerable wild animals should never be done
purely for profit? If necessary at all, for whatever reason, it
should be done in the most humane way possible.

Those Harp and Hooded Seal pups' eyes haunt me. The hunting of seals
in Canada is a case in point. The fishing industry and hunters state
that the seal population has grown out of proportion and is decimating
fish stocks. Yet I heard a Canadian official on the radio quite
readily admit that this wasn't the real reason, but economic
tradition. The pelts and body parts have an economic value. One of
the reasons for using clubs and hakapiks is so that the pelts stay
intact. Shooting is not so efficient apparently! One thought occurs
to me - guns and bullets cost money thus reducing profits! How is it
a Hunt - when no skill is involved, and the quarry is a defenceless
baby seal with no means of escape? Not even a fighting chance? Neither
is it a Cull, since they take as many of the next healthy generation
as they can kill in their allotted time.

A very 'private part' of the male seal's anatomy is used to makes
purses, can you believe? The tiny pelts make fur coats for the
affluent. The killing of Harp Seal pups for their pure white coats
(under three weeks old) was banned in the 1980s thanks to an
international outcry. But the hunt continued. I have friends who
actively oppose the hunt as do many of their fellow Canadians, yet
Canada is actively promoting and seeking markets for seal products.
IFAW and many other
organisations have more detailed information.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe.
- John Muir, conservationist.

Another pair of eyes that will look in to your soul (if you have one)
belongs to the baby Orangutan. Driven to the edge of extinction by
indiscriminate logging, the mothers are killed so the babies can be
taken for the pet trade, to perform for and amuse tourists. The babies
are beside themselves, almost inconsolable. The sanctuaries where
rescued young orphaned Orangutans are cared for are full to bursting.
Unless the destruction of forests and Orangutans stops, this beautiful
animal will be extinct in less than ten years along with many other
forest species. What right have we to decimate a species like this?

I received one piece of good news this week. A proposed Palm Oil
plantation in pristine forest in Borneo has been cancelled, after much
work by WWF and BOSF-UK. This would
have destroyed even more Orang-utan habitat.

It is possible to block such slaughter and cruelty from the mind -
after all it is not our responsibility is it? It is happening at the
other side of the world. Well, perhaps it wouldn't if Europeans and
Americans and many others did not buy furs or seal products. If we did
not pay to watch Orang-utans perform, or to be photographed with them.
If we did not buy timber goods from unsustainable sources and wildlife
products on the Internet.

Here in the UK we are not innocent either. There are huge concerns
over the fate of Badgers in this country. I have to admit to a very
personal interest in this one particular species, as I have Badgers
visiting my garden every night. Now I can't profess to have come
'eyeball to eyeball' with my visitors, but their behaviour is a joy to
watch and their vulnerability is plain to see. Imagine something like
a cross between a teddy bear and a piglet, especially the cubs, and
you will see their appeal. This "ancient Briton" - one badger sett is
recorded in the Doomsday Book - is under threat yet again, after years
of persecution.

Blamed in some quarters for spreading Bovine TB (tuberculosis) among
cattle, our Government is contemplating a mass 'cull' of Badgers,
ostensibly to limit the spread of Bovine TB. There is that word again!
A cull would reduce incidences of BovTB in cattle, and would result in
a healthier population of Badgers in the long term, so it is said.
Killing in this way is just as likely to leave a TB infected
population, as a healthy one. The fact that vacant habitat will soon
be re-colonised by other Badgers does not seem to occur to them. So do
we rid ourselves of all of them?

To be a true Cull - only sick Badgers, or at least Badgers with the
disease, would need to be killed, but no, wholesale indiscriminate
killing is mooted. So thousands of healthy animals may die, to protect
cattle. Even the Government's own report can find no definitive proof
that Badgers give cattle TB. There are even suggestions that the
intensive husbandry of cattle, and the movement of same may actually
be the cause of the spread, so perhaps they are giving TB to the
Badgers. Which method - shooting, gassing, trapping? It seems to me
that none would be humane or efficient, and other animals could die in
the process.

Now, I have been scratching my head trying to remember where I have
heard all this before? Aaah! I remember now! Didn't we have the same
attitude when BSE and Foot and Mouth was rife? The graphic footage of
cattle lying in pits, swelling up, burning, their feet in the air, is
with many of us still. Many herds were killed, with many animals
subsequently found to be perfectly healthy. It did not affect just
cattle either. Many other species of animals were killed as suspect,
including pets.

Bearing in mind that Badger populations can crash dramatically in
drought conditions, an estimated population of over 250,000 can easily
be decimated; much like Seal populations have crashed from disease in
the past. This makes it even more or a worry, as many parts of the UK
are still suffering from lack of rain. I heard just recently that
Dover, and Kent now have water restrictions, among others. Certainly
in the latter half of 2005 our Badgers were very hungry indeed, and
still are, judging by the appetites they are displaying this Spring!
Artificially provided food comes second on their menu to natural
sources. The Badger
Trust is heavily involved in fighting this along with the RSPCA.

What will they do with all the Badgers they 'cull'? More pits? Of
course, there could be an economic benefit somewhere in there - Badger
Hair makes excellent Shaving Brushes! But at the moment it is illegal
in the UK to kill or interfere with them, as Badgers are a protected
species - Oh, really!! Expensive Shaving brushes are sold in this
country but the Badger hair comes from Asia and China. So that's all
right then.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the
way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature,
the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of
man.
- Mahatma Gandhi, Indian spiritual/political
leader.

Websailor's Wacky Wildlife
World Archive

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06.04.06 Front Page

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