We (and I am talking England here) don’t have a vermin list. I’m glad about that. Whenever I hear someone talking about vermin it makes my metaphorical hackles rise. Why should we regard any species that has evolved on this planet as being a problem? Yes, individuals of species can cause us problems but it just seems a little too much like saying ‘blacks’, ‘jews’ or ‘gays’ to say ‘vermin’. So I’m not happy about us calling the Carrion Crow, Brown Rat or Hen Harrier vermin.
That doesn’t mean that I am against killing individual animals that are causing us problems. I have set mouse traps in the past and I’ve authorised predator control as part of my job, but I see every animal killed as regrettable, and I have sought to minimise the numbers killed and to avoid as much suffering for them as possible.
We do, for birds, have something called the General Licence, which lists those species that can be killed (by legal means) without their killer having a specific licence – so this is akin to a pest list, or a vermin list. And Natural England is consulting on its composition at the moment.
There will be plenty of arguments (and see here) about which species should be added to or subtracted from the General Licence, and conditions that should be set, before the consultation closes in May. I’ll be thinking about it and will post my response to the consultation here well ahead of the closing date.
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Yes I’ve always thought the word ‘vermin’ conveys irrational and outdated hate within the person using it. ‘Pest’ I can understand.
I’m happy to say I don’t use the term vermin. The concept of vermin does exist in English Law, I used to have to deal with premise which fell within the definition of ‘Filthy and Verminous’, but this was a fairly broad concept, including some of the UK’s less popular wildlife like Bed Bugs, Lice, and Flea’s, as well as more popular creatures such as Rats and mice.
Just to correct an error from last week. We do have Grey Partridges breeding at Loddington contrary to your assertion that the RSPB’s Grange/Hope Farm was out performing Loddington in this regard. I’m happy to say that these two sites are not competing but both trying to do similar things in similar but slightly different ways.
I was at Loddington recently and happily saw a good range of Farmland Birds and a lot of Hares, although admittedly not as much as I might have done on somewhere which was actually farmed for Partridges but the point of Loddington is the maximising wildlife on a commercially successful farm not maximising shooting value.
I would be happy to classify people who persecute Hen Harriers as vermin!
In a way, it might be better if we did have a vermin list. I hate the way the word is used to describe any species that the speaker personally dislikes as if it somehow justifies their wish to kill it. I’ve even had my cat, snoozing in the sun in my front garden, described to me as ‘vermin’. It’s a catch-all word that actually means nothing but for some people seems to justify their own wrong-headedness.
I’m a great believer in the supremacy of nature. When left undisturbed it’s ability to maintain a balance between all species is quite literally marvelous. The idea that some creatures should be classified as vermin is directly related to our own interference in nature’s balance; in that sense the only real vermin are we ourselves.
Indeed Tony, but given their job ( keepering is hardly a profession whatever is claimed) they are also professional wildlife criminals but perhaps they should be included on the general licence under the conservation clause. Joking aside, on the general licence consultation I would rather see a number of species off the list than any added and the types of trap allowed restricted and where they are set restricted eg a crow multi catch under a closed canopy in woodland or close to a buzzard nest is not set for crows whatever the decoy.
Wiki says – Vermin are pests or nuisance animals, especially those that threaten human society by spreading diseases or destroying crops and livestock.
Not referring to ‘disease spread’ is a mistake !
A badger in Scotland may not be referred to as ‘vermin’ – in Gloucestershire it’s ‘vermin’ by definition
The world’s rarest rose growing in a field of prime malting barley is also a ‘weed’
That could be an interesting philosophical debate Trimbush. Is it the Rose that is the weed in the barley field or is it the barley that is the weed in the Rose garden. Do we kill the one that can’t be replaced or move the one that could.
And Wiki refers to pests as “a plant or animal detrimental to humans or human concerns (as agriculture or livestock production)”; alternative meanings include organisms that cause nuisance and epidemic disease associated with high mortality (specifically: plague). In its broadest sense, a pest is a competitor of humanity”.
So pest and vermin would appear to be synonyms, although as Mark notes vermin is the more emotive and clearly pejorative term, favoured most often (it seems to me) by those seeking justification for the eradication of any species thus labelled, without the need for the inconvenience of further rational/scientific reasoning.
There should perhaps equally be a term for humans that destroy biodiversity or natural environments, such that individuals guilty of such crimes might be universally viewed with the same pity/contempt as a racist or homophobe. It is hard to conjure the perfect neologism in this case, but we need something better than “sportsman”.
Perhaps Nye Bevan used it the right way in 1948:– That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
Yes I’ve always thought the word ‘vermin’ conveys irrational and outdated hate within the person using it.
How about head lice? I can understand the animal in the wrong place argument but seeing as the only place they ever seem to be is on people’s heads then they must come pretty near to being vermin at least from the human point of view.
Then there’s Ebola, small pox BTB &c – eradicating these things if we could would definitely reduce bio diversity but might not be a bad thing.
To think Black Grouse are classed as ‘Vermin’ on most Red Grouse moors makes you wonder what they say about any one who does not agree with them. As Charles Waterton, the famous Yorkshire land owner and naturalist wrote in 1811 ‘ I will strangle the keeper if he ever dares touch my Barn Owls’!!
Wasn’t Charles Waterton of Yorkshire the original Boston Spa Strangler?
Although not affected by the General Licence (for obvious reasons!) vultures are another group of birds that have endured an undeserved reputation as undesirables in the past. Nowadays they are more widely recognised as ecologically important but this has not prevented them from becoming terribly endangered. The extinction of several vulture species in India as a consequence of the widespread use of an anti-inflammatory drug, diclofenac, on cattle has – hopefully – been averted at the last minute by the banning of the drug there but it now appears that the threat has moved west. Diclofenac has been approved for use in parts of the EU and its use is apparently on the increase in countries with important vulture populations, notably Spain. Although differences in animal husbandry methods between India and Spain may mean the impact of the drug might not be so catastrophic in Spain as it was in India do we really want to take the risk, especially if alternative drugs are available?
For more information see http://www.birdlife.org/europe-and-central-asia/news/vulture-killing-drug-now-available-eu-market?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=924363&utm_campaign=0
A petition asking the EU to ban this drug has been set up and can be found here: http://chn.ge/1fHij71
Crikey, thanks for sharing this and the petition. I think vultures in parts of Africa where poaching is rife are also now endangered due to poisoning by poachers – they attract attention to the carcass.
Derik, I agree that “left undisturbed” nature would reign supreme and find it’s own balance – the problem is, that’s just not possible in our over-crowded island – everything is constantly being disturbed! Be it modern agriculture, new roads, new houses, public access etc etc, we have tipped the balance to the point that if simply ‘left alone’, a big chunk of ‘nature’ would fall off the cliff that it’s desperately trying to hang onto. We can’t undo our past, and modern agriculture isn’t going to go away (albeit there could be some minor improvements through CAP reform), so other than sticking our heads in the sand and hoping it will all work out fine (which it won’t), I feel strongly that we verminous humans have a moral obligation manage the landscape, and certain species, to do our very best to try and maximise species diversity. That doesn’t mean wiping out badgers, foxes, crows etc., it means managing their populations, where they are a problem, to give struggling species a fighting chance. This needs to go hand in hand with improving habitat.
I am afraid you are kidding yourself if you think everything will be fine if we just leave ‘nature’ to get on with it. I am sure we’re beyond that luxury.
We have a long history of classifying animals as vermin and then belatedly worrying about their mysterious declines.
In 1914, British “sportsman” and big game hunter R.C.F. Maugham wrote: “Let us consider for a moment that abomination—that blot upon the many interesting wild things—the murderous Wild Dog. It will be an excellent day for African game and its preservation when means can be devised for its complete extermination.” Accordingly for a long time wild dogs were shot as vermin, even in national parks where, as Bere (1955) commented: “…it was considered necessary, as it had often been elsewhere, to shoot wild dogs in order to give the antelope opportunity to develop their optimum numbers…“. Such shooting continued for many years; for example, wild dogs were shot by park staff until as recently as 1979 in Niger where they are now probably extinct.
This example is classic in illustrating the perception that persists amongst many similarly minded folk today, that nature can be improved upon with the help of some judicious culling of predators. For “murderous Wild Dog” your average gamekeeper today might substitute “bloodthirsty fox or pine marten”. Meanwhile Lycaon pictus is now extinct over much of its former range and viable populations probably only persist in Northern Botswana and Southern Tanzania, while here in the UK a raven cull is being proposed on Langholm alongside calls for similar measures against buzzrads. Plus ça change…
Thanks for the post Mark – a subject close to my own heart, as I’ve always had a fondness for all the crows and would be as happy as a jackdaw on a chimney pot if they were all taken off the gen. licence. Have to accept that this will probably never happen in my lifetime as the conservation status of the commoner ones isn’t likely to be threatened and there are more urgent battles to fight – hen harriers, golden eagles, vultures etc. But they surely do deserve to be appreciated and lose their bad name, and like their larger raptor cousins I hate that there is much misinformation about them.
Could anyone read Sylvia Bruce Wilmore’s ‘Crows, Jays, Ravens and their Relatives’ or George Kirby Yeats ‘The life of the Rook’ and then still regard any of the corvids as ‘vermin’?
– and how about Mark Cocker’s ‘Crow Country’ ?
I agree Corvids are fascinating creatures and certainly deserve better than a death that is imprudent and unlicensed (as well as the other species). Also, I’ve always thought the gull conundrum was a bit of a ‘one’… what with their poor and/or declining status. Protected in some places, but discouraged or blatently ousted in others. And I’m not talking about urban areas, but nature reserves.
I also agree that the term ‘vermin’ does seem so ignorant and antiquated for whatever species in whatever context, and signifies an underlying, skewed, hierarchical perspective that should have been long long left behind by our culture by now. Maybe one day more people will be able to consider the wider context of all things and the world in which we live?
Just for the record I hope I am not to late to point out that John Miles statement ‘To think that Black Grouse are treated as ‘Vermin’ on most grouse moors’ should in no way be taken as reflecting reality. In England the opposite is the case, as reflected in the Black Grouse recovery strategy. In Wales the situation is even more stark, with the survival of Black Grouse almost entirely dependant on the only moor with a keepered stock of Red Grouse. I’m happy to say that a whole range of partners are involved in the fight to return Black Grouse population to a healther state have no difficulty in working with ‘grouse moors’ who manifestly do not treat Black Grouse as vermin.
Please use the word ‘Red Grouse’ when talking about Red Grouse moors as the management is 99% for one species as Black Grouse used to be the dominant species until someone changed the way the uplands were managed.
John, With respect, Black Grouse used to be present in every county in Englandshire, but they are now practically extinct in the country – there is a case to say it is only management for Red Grouse that keeps them hanging on at all!
bdmpalmer – thank you. There is a case for saying that – it is a very weak case though.