Countryside mismanagement

January 22, 2010 · Filed under Government, hunting, Keep Cruelty History, News, Parliament & Politics, Shooting & Snaring · Tagged animal welfare, culling, DEFRA, game, hunting, sanctuaries, shooting, Wales

This week’s note from Douglas Batchelor, Chief Executive.

The hunters and the shooters have at least one thing in common and that is their claim to be managing the countryside and its wildlife. They make that claim without even pausing to wonder about the stunning arrogance of it and without the evidence to back up their claims in relation to national objectives that we the public are bought into.

The hunters and the shooters equate their misspent effort and money with management, and mistakenly claim to be managing the countryside on the nation’s behalf. It is worth looking more closely at their claims.

The week’s most glaring example of dysfunctional decision making with regard to countryside management are the badger cull trials in Wales. The science shows quite clearly that a badger cull that falls short of species extinction will make matters worse rather than better in relation to the transmission of tuberculosis (TB).

The effect of taking out badgers by culling is that the survivors move about more, either to exploit the vacant territories or possibly to escape from the area of the cull. The science also shows that as a consequence other animal populations, where there was previously territorial competition, will exploit the territorial changes. In particular there will be a radical increase in the fox populations.

At the same time as effort is being devoted to culling badgers in the mistaken belief that it will solve the problem of TB in cattle, the chances are that insufficient attention will be paid to dealing with the problems associated with cross contamination on farms and at markets. Only restrictions on livestock movements and contacts will cut down the spread of disease.

The tragedy is the refusal of the farming industry to accept that they are wrong in calling for a cull. And whilst all this is going on, the financial consequences of compensating farmers for the costs of culling infected cattle will fall on the taxpayer. This cannot continue: future policy proposals that farmers should pay the costs of their own compensation schemes may eventually lead to some changes of attitude.

Fox hunting is another such wasted resource and cruel enterprise. The science shows that years of misguided persecution of foxes has had minimal effect on the fox population. The Burns Inquiry showed that while farmers thought that the culling had a beneficial effect in reducing losses, the economic and scientific evidence did not back that up. Other research has shown that eliminating the fox population in a local area simply vacates fox territories and creates competition between incomers in the fox population, which can actually make matters worse rather than better.

Common sense dictates that if there isn’t much water in the well it doesn’t take many people to drink the well dry. With slow growing Caledonian pine it doesn’t take many grazing animals, be they small or large, to nibble off the succulent green shoots. Likewise with suitable trees for knocking the velvet off antlers, in a forest full of options some trees are going to be used for the purpose however many deer are out there. The only answer for regeneration of the forest is not culling, but fencing – either of enclosures or by protecting individual trees.

The reality with deer populations is that they rise and fall with the available feed and the condition of the female deer at conception and when the young are born. If populations are marginally reduced by culling, deer condition improves and more survive. The hunters and killers are actually increasing the population by their actions, albeit marginally. If the real objective was to minimise the deer population, they would stand aside and let the population resume its normal cyclical pattern of boom in numbers followed by starvation and bust. That is nature’s way of ensuring the long term survival of the fittest. Human meddling for sport and trophy hunting or ‘management’, just gets in the way of the Darwinian process of natural selection.

When it comes to looking at the population of hares and rabbits the same sort of scientific considerations apply. Habitat and feed provide the real population drivers. The absence of natural predators will also play its part in determining the population size.

With apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller who famously spoke out against the Nazis:

First the farmers, the gamekeepers and the hunters came for the mice and the rats, but I didn’t speak out because I believed what the country folk said about them being a pest and them eating their grain.

Then they came for the stoats and the weasels that take game bird eggs because they said they were a pest too, but I didn’t speak out because I believed what they said about managing the countryside.

Then they came for the hares and the rabbits that the foxes and stoats had kept under control, because they said that they ate their grass and their cereals, and the young heather shoots that their grouse might otherwise eat, but I didn’t speak out because I believed what they said about pest control in the countryside.

Then they came for the foxes and the badgers because they said they were a pest as well and the countryside had to be managed to safeguard farm livestock, but I didn’t speak out because I believed what they said about countryside management and the need to control wild animal populations.

Then they came for the deer and the wild boar because they said they were a pest too and had to be controlled because of the damage that they did to the trees, but I didn’t speak out, because I believed what they said about pest control and wildlife management.

Then the countryside I used to love fell silent, there was no wildlife left to see, and because at last I spoke out, and because there was nothing else left for them to hunt and chase and kill for sport; they came for me.

There comes a time when all people who care must speak out, before it is too late! With an election looming which could lead to the clock being turned back to cruelty to animals for sport, now is the time to speak out and to make it clear that we don’t want that to happen.

Please don’t stay silent and let it all happen. Please get your friends and family working as hard as they can, pointing out the dangers to the nation’s wildlife and helping us to www.keepcrueltyhistory.com.