I didn’t plan it, but if I’d thought about it then maybe I would have done. In my columns in the current issues of British Wildlife and Birdwatch I discuss two issues where opinions differ. In British Wildlife I discuss the rather poor working relationship between animal welfare organisations and nature conservation organisations and contrast it with the amount of time that nature conservationists spend talking to people who kill wildlife for ‘sport’. Take a step back and it looks a little odd.
But then in Birdwatch I relate the current position in the cull of Ruddy Ducks, supported by organisations like the WWT and RSPB and yet probably looked on with horror and anger by many who think that nature conservation and caring for individual animals are exactly the same thing. They often are, but they sometimes aren’t – that’s my view anyway. But take a step back and to many this will look a little odd.
So, life’s complicated.
But elsewhere in British Wildlife you will find articles on the GWCT’s long-running Loddington project, the RSPB’s long-running Stone Curlew project, an account of the Welsh government’s plans to put a motorway through the Gwent Levels, an article on the freshwater pearl mussel and much, much more.
And elsewhere in Birdwatch you will find round-ups of recent rarities in the UK and further afield, a fascinating account of the wader species that never was, superb photographs and a guide to flycatcher identification.
A selection of the articles from the August edition of British Wildlife are available on their website Mark – including (ahem) the editorial on the Gwent Levels and the awful plans for the M4:
https://www.britishwildlife.com/site/issue/216210/volume-28-number-6-august-2017
As a practising nature conservationist I’ve had some very bad experiences with animal rights groups and we’re most definitely not on the same page. Talking to more than one MP, they’re a toxic brand because many MPs seem to have been on the receiving end of similar abuse (including ironically my current local MP who is on record as being consistently anti foxhunting but was assumed to be in favour because he’s a Tory).
Now I’m sure not all animal rights activists are unpleasant, let alone terrorists, but in my direct experience even the nicest ones, people I know personally, seem very reluctant they are to condemn their fellow travellers who are. I’ve never met an Irish person who says “But of course the IRA were justified” or a Muslim who says “I’d never blow up a kids’ pop concert but I can understand why ISIS thinks its a good idea”.
Most of the people I have know who have a particular interest in animal rights have said, at some point, something like “I’d never do that but I someone has to stand up for the animals”. This includes people who knew that I’d once had death threats from animal rights terrorists for culling rabbits.
Maybe my experiences are not typical, maybe I’m being unfair, but I am very much of the view that its best to take a long spoon when dealing with animal rights activists. There’s a quasi religious fanaticism about a lot of them, that’s all the more disturbing because, as Mark says, you’d think we’d often be on more or less on the same side.
In contrast I have known many perfectly nice people who shoot. I just don’t understand why they hang out with the likes of Beefy and YFTB. I’ve also had to deal with some old school nature conservation wardens who frankly hate people intruding onto “their” sites despite the fact that those same people pay their wages.
So I suppose there’s good and bad on all sides – but I’ve learned to be especially wary of animal rights fanatics. They are the only ones who’ve threatened to kill me.
Jbc – thank you.
I suppose that might be the difference, they aren’t the only ones who have threatened to kill me.
Strange world isn’t it? In the end I think we have to do business with whoever is on the same side at the same time. But it would be nice, in so many spheres across the world, if we could all acknowledge differences without feeling the entitlement, alone the obligation, to attack those who aren’t in complete agreement with us. Sadly I doubt that day will ever come, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
You rarely win big battles without forming hroad coalitions.
Jbc. Thanks for telling it like it is.
jbc – I think you are well advised to steer clear of animal rights fanatics, and most other form of fanatic as well. All ’causes’, just and unjust, can attract people whose zeal has outstripped their good sense.
But maybe you are conflating animal rights activists with animal welfare supporters. My experience with animal welfare people is sharply different from the picture you have painted. As always, it’s difficult to generalise and all groups contain a wide diversity of people, but if I had to characterise animal welfare supporters, it would go something like this. Most of them would score above average on the kindness and gentleness scale (sometimes annoyingly so!), a high proportion are women (much higher than, say, among birders), many are in their twenties, thirties and forties (age groups often poorly represented in birding and conservation circles), and many are not particularly well off. They commonly keep pets, even sometimes including a cat or three. So they are (on average) rather different from most birders and wildlife conservationists, and usually strike me as a bit warmer, friendlier and ‘softer’ (for want of a better word). My most common criticism is that I wish they would be a bit more militant.
We’re all complicated, and contradictions and paradoxes abound in all groups. But one thing I’m sure is true is that there would be more birds of prey around if the world were populated entirely with animal welfare enthusiasts than if it were filled with just hunters and shooters.
I’ve been with you and the RSPB all the way on the Ruddy Duck cull, Mark.
Perhaps this will illustrate how difficult it all was: Well into the cull I visited an RSPB reserve and was surprised to see a Ruddy Duck family right next to the main path. At the visitor centre I enquired, in all seriousness, whether arrangements were in hand to shoot them. I got a very hostile response (from a mixture of staff and volunteers, I guess) including the view that we shouldn’t let the Spanish tell us what to do…