Re: The CONservation organised culls.

From: Nick Maclaren (nmm1_at_cuss.cam.ac.dc)
Date: 10/06/04 

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 12:48:08 +0100

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 12:45:46 +0100, J Smytje <JSmythe@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>The RSPB, Woodland Trust, BTO etc slaughter millions of animals each
>year between them. They call these animals "pests", a euphamism to
>legal eliminate anything you dont like. Based on classic nazi
>principals.
>
>They suggest, though you'd be hard pushed to find any of the groups
>willing to discuss it, that the killing is carried out by professional
>marksmen, with minimal suffering.
>
>Here's an interesting story to proves the lie in conservation carried
>out by CONservation hooligans.
>
>
>
>http://homepages.which.net/~rex/bourne/diary199902.htm
>
>
>Saturday 20th February 1999
>
>We went to Bourne Woods a few days back for one of our regular walks
>only to find a notice in red letters stuck up at the entrance
>announcing that they were closed that day because shooting was in
>progress. Visitors at the entrance who had also been disappointed by
>the closure asked us: "Who is doing the shooting and at what?"
>The last time I complained to the Forestry Commission about shooting
>in these woods I was told that culls of fallow deer were carried out
>on two or three days each year because the population in the area is
>so high that they killed off the young trees in new plantations.
>Bourne Woods, like many others in Britain, have survived for thousands
>of years without culling so why start now? If deer do cause damage,
>then that damage will be done whether the herds number a hundred or a
>mere fifty. No, the answer is that these deer are shot for profit
>because their carcasses are handed over to a game dealer who sells
>them for venison.
>
>Those who cull will insist that their marksmen do it humanely but we
>can be sure of nothing in this world and certainly not when trying to
>hit a moving animal with a rifle shot. I have often seen pools of
>blood on woodland trails left by a large animal and this indicates
>that they have merely been wounded and on another occasion, a young
>stag broke cover and dashed across the path in front of me with one of
>its antlers dangling broken and loose. It was terrified and
>disorientated and it seemed obvious that the animal had either been
>hit by one of the gunmen or frightened by the noise of the firing.
>
>The Forestry Commission has made no mention of organised shoots, which
>I have witnessed on several occasions when the quarry is rabbit and
>pheasant. We have even seen these gunmen in the woods on a Saturday
>afternoon when walkers were in the vicinity, a most frightening
>experience.
>
>We once ignored these warning notices and watched a shooting party at
>work in Bourne Woods in mid-week. Two dozen or more men armed with
>shotguns arrived in lorries and then fanned out in line before moving
>forward in order to give maximum cover to the woodland ahead and
>therefore anything living in that area had little chance of escaping
>their attention. Most of these men were farmers or connected with the
>agricultural industry, which has already been responsible for so much
>devastation in our green and pleasant land.
>
>Why does the Forestry Commission allow this shooting to continue? Pet
>owners are asked to keep dogs on a lead when walking in the woods and
>horse riding is banned yet gunmen are regularly allowed in to destroy
>wild animals. This is sheer hypocrisy.
>
>Coincidentally, I have just been reading a leaflet issued by the
>Forestry Commission which has owned the woods since 1926 and is always
>ready to parade its green credentials. "Fallow deer are abundant in
>the wood and if lucky you may catch a glimpse of their shy cousin the
>muntjac", it said. "Be on the lookout for other dwellers of these
>woodlands such as foxes, squirrels, owls, snakes and woodpeckers. Not
>so common are the white letter hairstreak and white admiral
>butterflies, hazel dormouse, nightingale and badger that also live
>there."
>
>It should also have said: beware of shooters because they regularly
>roam these woods killing off our wildlife. Do these gunmen not know of
>the changes that have been wrought on the English countryside in the
>last fifty years? Are they unaware of the flora and fauna that is now
>under threat? Have they not heard the siren calls of alarm that
>creatures such as the brown hare and the common partridge that were
>once so abundant are fast disappearing?
>
>The leaflet also carries a warning to visitors asking them to remember
>the forest code by protecting trees, plants and wildlife. Leave things
>as you find them, take nothing away, it says. How does the Forestry
>Commission reconcile these guidelines to the public with a day's
>closure to enable gunmen hunt our wild animals? The Forestry
>Commission should practice what it preaches and leave these animals in
>peace. Hunting is a barbaric practice and totally unnecessary and
>allowing it in the woodlands it controls is tantamount to pulling the
>trigger on anything that moves.
>
>I notified the Forestry Commission on Monday that because of the
>increasing public concern over the threat to wildlife in these woods,
>I intended writing on the subject and I asked them for a statement to
>explain their shooting policy but although almost a week has elapsed,
>they have not replied.
>

No surprises there then!

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.