8 Replies to “Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill”

  1. Just added a long quote from Aldo Leopoldo to a talk about wildlife, biodiversity, conservation that I’m about to present. This says it all in fewer words and a 21st century style. #wishi’dthoughtofthat

  2. “The Accidental Species – Misunderstandings of Human Evolution” by Henry Gee. A very worthwhile read

  3. Well, they do build awesome structures, ferociously defend what they see as their own and have a weakness for sugar and fermented fruit juice. But I don’t know about wasps.

  4. A few years back, a good friend (now sadly deceased) and I were out birding, minding our own business looking for autumn rarities. We were accosted by, let’s say, a ‘true countryman’ who, seeing our binoculars, decided that we were responsible for the misdemeanors of all wildlife, and proceeded to harangue us for 20 minutes. We tried to stay polite, whilst staying focused on the search for warblers among the bushes.

    Our countryman was now well into his stride, and started on about badgers and the effect of TB, finishing up with “Badgers, I mean, what use are they?”

    Ever the coward, I just muttered about seeing both sides of an argument, but my friend shot back with “Well, I’m a vegetarian, so what is the use of your cattle to me?” This finally shut him up, and we were left in peace.

    1. “… so what is the use of your cattle to me?”

      Milk, yoghurt, butter, cheese, leather. Then you throw away the meat. This is why it is essential that vegetarians remain in the minority so that there are enough omnivores to eat what vegetarians waste.

      1. I don’t really buy that, FC. ‘Dual-purpose’ breeds are a thing of the past. We get very little meat from dairy herds, and even less milk, yoghurt or cheese from beef breeds.
        If we all ate less meat, ‘feeding the world’ would be a much smaller problem.
        Although there is still the issue of leather…

        1. ”Dual-purpose’ breeds are a thing of the past’

          I don’t agree. Crossbreeding the dairy cattle with robust dual purpose breeds from other EU countries, such as Montebaillarde from France, Vleckvieh from Germany, Scandinavian Red catte is increasingly becoming quite a mainstream strategy – many in the dairy industry believe that the extreme breeds of holstein have perhaps had their day.

          ‘We get very little meat from dairy herds..’

          Again that’s not true. Last time I checked, around 400,000 beef cross calves were produced by the UK dairy industry, mostly going into bull, steer and heifer beef systems. This equates to around 50% of all UK prime carcase beef originating from the UK dairy herd.

          1. Apologies – by dual-purpose I meant one breed that was kept for both milk and meat production.
            My point was that because we have highly specialist beef and dairy breeds, it is not inevitable that we would run short of milk and yoghurt if we ate less meat (or vice versa).

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