Wildlife is managed by nature, not man
PARLIAMENTARIANS spent 700 hours debating the Hunting Act 2004. Giles Bradshaw now appears determined to spend a similar amount of time writing to the Echo in his attempt to have the Act repealed, Hunting is sport and animal management, Points of view, April 4.
It is absurd for Mr Bradshaw to say that hunters tend to select weaker animals as stronger ones are more likely to escape the hounds. I do not know whether Mr Bradshaw arranges a medical for foxes before they are hunted to exhaustion and torn apart by dogs for sport. Are hunting hounds, especially at this time of year, instructed to avoid chasing pregnant vixen?
Is Mr Bradshaw unaware that the job of the harbourer in stag hunting is to select the strongest stag to ensure that the hunters have a good long chase? Huntsmen have little interest in chasing weak quarry as there would be little fun unless the terrified animals can be pursued for several miles.
Hunting is not an effective means of wildlife management. In the case of foxes the mortality rate resulting from the 'sport' is almost insignificant and, in many parts of the country, the principal concern of the hunting fraternity is how to keep fox numbers up.
Foxes are often reared in artificial earths to ensure a good supply of the animals is available, but as a general rule wildlife is managed by nature without the need for human involvement.
John Phelps
Argyll Road, Exeter
(by email)
2 Comments
by Francis Kirkham, Crediton
Friday, April 10 2009, 4:25PM
“John Phelps says that "the job of the harbourer in stag hunting is to select the strongest stag to ensure that the hunters have a good long chase". Some years ago, before the hunting ban, I was told by a keen stag hunts-woman that someone scouted around a day or two before a hunt to find injured or otherwise weakened stags to target.
Either practices differ greatly between hunts or someone is not telling the truth - or maybe, as is most likely, the truth is more complicated.
Also, I would dispute the generalization that nature manages wildlife in this country, not humans, although this is a somewhat academic point.
Almost all land in this country is managed by humans, a lot of it via grazing animals bred and controlled by man. This fashions the landscape and the habitats within which our wildlife exists.
This is of course in addition to more direct and purposeful wildlife management in nature reserves and on farmland under "wildlife-friendly" management through an agri-environment scheme and, though to a lesser extent, through a subsidy system that has environmental conditions attached.
Then there is pest control, including the use of insecticides, mole traps rodent poisons, molluscicides etc etc.
Man has massive control over wildlife in this and most other countries. Nature would be hugely different if we were not part of it.
How this affects the debate about the morality of hunting I will leave others to judge.”
by Ed, Exeter
Thursday, April 09 2009, 6:34PM
“The MP's spent 700 hours debating it, because it is BAD
legislation.
Unworkable,
Unenfoceable,
Unwanted”