The more I see of Britain’s native wildlife, the more privileged I feel to be in the presence of these creatures. I cannot imagine how painfully dull and joyless my existence would be without them, so I consider myself privileged to be constantly surrounded by a huge variety of animals.
When I’ve walked my dog through the sprawling fields and woods that surround me, I invariably rest for a while in a favourite spot in the long grass, on a gentle slope leading down to the river that meanders through the meadows. The water trickles over a bed of uneven stones before it plummets into a broad pool, so the combined effect of hearing the tinkling and splashing while gazing at the silent deeps is soporific, especially on a warm evening. While lazing on the bank among the sweet-smelling grass and wild flowers, it’s easy to drift into a daydream, because the setting is so beautiful and serene that it could be a Paradise on Earth.
I’ll sometimes see tiny fish darting in the shallows, as well as dragonflies hovering around the nodding reeds. In this blessed spot, I’ve seen herons, swifts and wild ducks, and every once in a while, a family of swans will float serenely past. I’ve watched as grass snakes have crawled gracefully past me down to the water, while I’ve also seen mink, foxes, deer, otters and water voles making their way through the shallows, as well as rabbits, squirrels and a rare badger in the meadow nearby. With the clouds above me and a pair of buzzards soaring in joyful circles, how can I not regard all this as an absolute privilege?
There are those, however, who take a different view and who regard it as their God-given right and absolute privilege to transform the British countryside into some kind of ghastly theme park, where most of these creatures are routinely hunted and killed, purely for the pleasure, gratification and self-indulgence of human participants in a minority pastime of killing wildlife for recreation. I’ve given the matter a lot of thought over the years, but I fail to see how my patch of England could be improved by blasting the birds out of the skies with lead shot for ‘sport’. The skies above me are made glorious by the sun, the stars, the moon, rainbows and drifting cotton clouds, but the graceful buzzards have their place there too, so I wouldn’t care to traipse along to some shooting estate to see them in captivity, nor would I care to see them shot or poisoned.
My fields and woods are like Heaven on Earth, so I do not think that the vista would be made more beautiful, serene or appealing by a bunch of hunt riders ripping up the turf, nor do I think the scene would be improved by a pack of howling, yapping hounds fouling the place and terrorising the wildlife. Our self-appointed “Guardians of the Countryside” might view it as their privilege to leave the fields and woods of England as a trampled, bloody ruin, strewn with droppings and mangled carcasses of wildlife, but I regard it as a blessing and a privilege to live in peace among the creatures of the woods, the meadows, the hedgerows, the streams and the open skies.
I also regard it as my absolute duty to protect those who have no voice of their own, and to relentlessly oppose those who wish to transform my rural paradise into a Hell on Earth for wildlife for their own selfish ends.
Maharbal
The Guardian June 4th by George Monbiot:
‘Anything that can’t be shot and eaten is shot and hung from a gibbet. The aristocracy is back in charge, destroying Britain’s wildlife
I might have solved a minor mystery. Last week, after a public outcry, the government dropped its proposal to spend our money on capturing buzzards and destroying their nests to help pheasant shoots. The scheme was championed by Richard Benyon – the minister charged, as one of David Cameron’s little jokes, with protecting wildlife and biodiversity. Benyon is the owner of a huge stately home called Englefield House, and the 20,000-acre walled estate that surrounds it. The estate employs gamekeepers to stock it with pheasants and kill the animals that might eat them.’
Please read the full article published in the Guardian on June 4th 2012 here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/04/wildlife-land-aristocracy
The Independent : June 2012
Dr Mark Avery, a former Conservation Director of the RSPB, blogs daily on UK conservation matters
June 2012 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-avery-when-tory-shooters-call-the-shots-7815058.html
The Guardian- Natural England has become a gopher of the landed classes | George Monbiot
June 7th 2012 Stand up for England’s wildlife instead of capitulating to the lords of the land and their business interests
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/jun/07/natural-england-wildlife-landowners
