h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been sitting here, next to an open window (yes folks it is summer, sort of, even at this height) and instead of the gentle background of birdsong, and rustling trees - all I can hear is a constant sound of shotguns - further away across the moors.

To begin with, I just blanked it out, thinking nothing of it. Shotguns are common here, either to deal with foxes, or to use for clay pigeon shooting. But today is the first time ever when I realise what is going on. Hundreds of birds are being shot in the name of 'sport'.

I feel edgy. There must be a shot at least once every five seconds and it's been going on for over an hour. Some sport eh?

My only piece of consolation us that out is unlikely that every shot has connected.

That must be true. And some of the birds do escape. We see them wandering around the lanes all the time - well the pheasants anyway.

We actually had a breeding red legged partridge in the garden with her chicks last year. Unfortunately I think the local cats got the chicks, we kept seeing her with fewer and fewer. Dad got a photo of the mother bird sitting on his window ledge, next to one of the bird tables. It's a bit blurry - but we have proof!

It's awful, isn't it? I have never been clear on why it's ok for people to get their kicks killing other living creatures. Even if a species needs* controlling (eg foxes) then do it humanely, not in a way that probably causes their last few moments of life to be spent in terror.

On a completely unrelated note, though, your post has reminded me of the date, which means it's now been 12 years to the day since I last smoked a cigarette. Yay me.

Deb


* I use "needs" here in a very loose sense. I've also never been clear on why we have the right to make that choice, just because we can

Hey! Congratulations on the not smoking thing!

Am impressed.


As for foxes, I hardly ever see them here in the country. When I lived in Bristol, they were a nightly occurrence. Clever animals, moved to the town where the huntsman couldn't chase!

Lot's of our friends have chickens in coops or wandering around their fields ( it's that sort of village still) so foxes amongst the hens are bad news. I sympathise with a normal person in a cottage keeping a gun to scare away the vixens. They can probably shoot straight. I have less or no sympathy with the uber-rich thinking this is 'sport'.

My mum has a fox come to her garden every night. He's a scrawny little thing and originally came to eat the little bit of dog food mum leaves out for Fred, the hedgehog who took up residence last winter and has never left. The fox now has his own little pile of food and Fred now gets mealyworms*.

I do believe we keep encroaching on nature and then get annoyed when it still wants to use the land. As if a fox should understand property law.

Deb

* Mum made a house for the little hedgehog she kept seeing last autumn, it's a sturdy box wrapped in plastic underneath an old caravan step. An old oven door is at an angle forming what I call a porch. Looking out for Fred last winter got mum through her chemo, it was about the only thing she was interested in some days. So Fred deserves his 5 star home and all the mealyworm in the world!

I heard that the 12th had been put back until tomorrow this year because of an old law about shooting grouse (the plural of that really ought to be 'grice' don't you think?) on a Sunday http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19226263 Or are they just shooting at anything with wings?

I think 'grice' is probably the singular of grouse, if you're very very posh

'grice' Who knows what they were shooting at - later we heard an ambulance, mum assumed they'd shot each other. We assured her that stuff like that only happens in Midsomer Murders. We're the tatty part of the countryside, not all posh where murders happen each breakfast time.

Or maybe it was the police to tell them they'd got the laws wrong, and to desist ridding the countryside from rampaging pheasants.

I haven't thought much about hunting since I moved to Boston. I suppose that people who live in the country have a different perspective about hunting. In farming communities, people have to contend with the reality that deer like to eat *everything* that a farmer could choose to grow. Hiring someone to keep the local deer population from getting too numerous is one of the costs that a farmer has to pay in order to stay in business. Then there are woodchucks. I've read horror stories about the steps that gardeners have taken to keep the chucks out of the gardens, only to discover that the chucks can dig tunnels beneath sunken fences.

I have mixed feelings about shooting game birds. On one hand, there are apt to be fewer antibiotics in a wild pheasant than in a farm-raised turkey [turkeys are in the pheasant family]. Some people seem to enjoy quail eggs. This would assume that quails are plentiful enough to survive as a species even after a few nests have been raided. We're humans, we like to eat, and most of us enjoy the taste of animals that had a chance to live their lives in a natural environment. I don't feel as sorry for wild pheasants and partridges as I do for commercially raised chickens that live their lives in tight cages.

On the other hand, there's a difference between people who shoot for sport, and people who need to hunt in order to put food on their tables [or to protect the family farm]. The exploding deer population was caused by our efforts to remove wolves and other large predators from our environs. Having caused the problem, it behooves us to take steps to try and solve it.

The bottom line is this: if you shoot an animal in order to dine on it, there's a certain logic to what you're doing. If you hunt as a sport, and waste the meat you've killed, that's a terrible thing, though carrion birds might disagree.

The pheasants and grouse are not wild paulh, far from it. They are reared by gamekeepers and then released purely in order to be shot at.

Exactly the same as quail eggs. They are farmed. It's been illegal to take any wild bird egg for longer than my lifetime.

Often the people taking part in the shoot have no interest in actually eating anything they shoot. In the weeks to come we will no doubt be offered a brace of pheasant or two, as 'leftovers'.

I am glad I am not listening to that

Deb, maybe your mother would enjoy these suggestions:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/natureactivities/


My father used to hunt with dogs, only dogs , no aid of rifles. And we ate all he brought, rabbits and hares. I guess that was part of all the forage we used to take from the countryside, that´s normal if you live in a village.

You need a heart of stone to shoot those animals for "sport".


Recently Spaniards knew that the king shoots elephants in África. There was a lot of outrage, not only for the money spent on such "sport" but also because of the stupid cruelty and vain epic that the picture taken emanated. You need to be sick to be able to enjoy that.

I can't understand killing anything for fun. I

"The pheasants and grouse are not wild paulh, far from it. They are reared by gamekeepers and then released purely in order to be shot at." [Lanzababy]

That sounds perverse.

"I can't understand killing anything for fun" [Willem]

A hundred years ago, celebrities like Teddy Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway enjoyed hunting large animals so they could mount the animals' heads on the wall. That approach tends to be frowned on nowadays. What a difference a century makes!

Actually, this August 12th *is* glorious! Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli died 400 years ago today. As a tribute, my choral society will be featuring Gabrieli's music in our Christmas concert this December.

Mounting heads... that's given rise to one of those jokes of the kind that always tickles my fancy.

Scottish Laird to guest: And here's a deer from the estate http://flickr.com/photos/hesselink/839225067/lightbox/

Guest: My goodness, he must have been travelling at a good speed when he hit the wall from the other side, your Lordship!

This 12th of August is glorious for another reason also: Tonight we should have the best chance to see the meteor shower

Well those are better reasons for celebrating the day Paulh and Pierce!

But even the mounting of heads I can understand in a way, since deer and such things are beautiful and impressive-looking. Having a mounted head is a way of appropriating that beauty. When I was a child I enjoyed looking closely at the mounted heads in some of the homes of hunters over here. But of course I imagined that they were alive. I appreciate living animals much more than dead ones:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Wildlife%20Photos/EkenKwaggas.jpg

Well on the Glorious Twelfth this year, my wife and I celebrated our 40th (Ruby) wedding anniversary.