Some control of nature is necessary today
REGULAR correspondent Elizabeth Allison often voices her views on cruelty to hares and other animals, pets or otherwise, with which I sympathise, although I consider her previously expressed views somewhat misguided if she feels suffering to animals will be increased once the UK is no longer within the EU.
Is she unaware of recent reports of animals being exported and treated appallingly in Europe prior to slaughter?
Does she not remember French farmers accused of burning alive a consignment of our sheep some years ago?
So far as I know, migrating birds still face perilous flights across Greece, Malta and Cyprus, to name some EU countries where I believe they are caught by either nets or on glued perches before being cooked and eaten – or even just shot for sport – despite toothless regulations?
Ms Allison rightly champions those who care for hedgehogs, a species evidently in steep decline, yet seeks to protect badgers, who, I understand, are particularly partial to eating hedgehogs. Also frogs and toads.
Little wonder all these species are disappearing as the badger population increases.
While I have no particular dislike of badgers and leaving aside the matter of whether or not they spread bovine TB to any significant degree, I have experienced myself the damage and potentially dangerous disruption they can cause.
I think there are far too many of them and see no reason for their numbers not to be controlled in the same way as deer.
Ms Allison also mentions foxes and grey squirrels, species both designated pests.
Foxes kill poultry more for pleasure than for their next meal. Grey squirrels not only devour birds’ eggs, but also fledglings and defenceless young by raiding nests, in the same way as magpies, jackdaws, crows and other predators.
Ms Allison evidently cares for her birds, as I do, but is it any wonder our song-bird populations are also shrinking – and the intensity of the delightful dawn chorus diminishing – when we have such as Chris Packham (whom I once greatly admired) advocating the reintroduction of birds of prey such as eagles, harriers, hawks, etc, while also trying to make it more difficult for farmers to control pests?
I hope Ms Allison is, as I am, concerned to see a pile of feathers on the ground near a feeder bearing witness to the visit of a sparrowhawk or other bird of prey such as a falcon, which won’t bother waiting for a pigeon if there’s an easier meal to be found.
Although I must accept to some extent that is nature, visits from such predators to our garden have increased and become all too frequent in recent years, as evidenced by the fall in consumption of the food regularly supplied for their potential victims to enjoy.
We are well past the era when nature could look after itself, so some control is needed.
We evidently think nothing of poisoning vermin such as rats, causing them to suffer a slow and painful death.
I even read recently a suggestion by the otherwise affable Monty Don that wolves should be reintroduced to cull deer, which seems to me beyond belief and potentially an extremely cruel solution.
Finally, as regards this dreadful pandemic, while I share Ms Allison’s belief that it is man-made, I remain unconvinced animals were involved.
From the outset I have been deeply suspicious as to the exact source of the outbreak. Whether or not my suspicion is unfounded may become clear in due course.
Robert Kemp, King’s Norton