Unnatural selection |
Paul Evans
|
1 | | TWO stories to hit the headlines | | |
| | recently make you wonder about | |
| | our attitudes to wild nature and | |
| | worry about the limits of conser- | |
| | vation thinking. | |
2 | | A fierce debate, with furious | |
| | letters in the Guardian, followed | |
| | proposals to control rabbits on | |
| | the Sussex Downs by gassing them | |
| | with cyanide. The conservation | |
| | argument against the rabbits, | |
| | put forward by the local council | |
| | and supported by the Wildlife | |
| | Trust, -motto, "Putting wild- | |
| | life on the map" - was that the | |
| | rabbit population on the Downs | |
| | has in-creased so much that it | |
| | is damaging important areas for | |
| | wild flowers through overgrazing. | |
3 | | Rabbit populations are extremely | | | | an act of terrorism, but the out- | | | | conservation case against mink |
| | variable and can build up massively | | | | pouring of public sympathy for two | | | | is that it has almost wiped out |
| | with a heavy impact on the plants | | | | pigs that escaped from an abattoir | | | | the native population of water |
| | they graze, only to be decimated | | | | earlier this year did not extend | | | | voles. Though it is true that |
| | by myxomatosis in other years. | | | | to mink. Hundreds of fugitive mink | | | | mink mothers with hungry kits |
| | Trying to control them by gassing | | | | have been rounded up by volunteers, | | | | will gobble up all the surroun- |
| | seemed a brutal and very shortterm | | | | including the RSPCA, and returned | | | | ding water voles, it is not the |
| | solution. It also incensed animal | | | | to the misery of the fur farm. | | | | whole story. Overgrazing and the |
| | welfare groups. The Downs have | | | | Farmers and landowners are shooting | | | | removal of reedy river edges, |
| | seen the ebb and flow of grazing | | | | and trapping as many as they can. | | | | grubbing up hedgerows, drainage |
| | pressure for many centuries and | | | | The Ministry of Agriculture and | | | | and flood defence schemes and |
| | will adjust. | | | | Food sent in a hit squad. | | | | other developments have caused |
4 | | In their fervour to protect native | | 6 | | American mink were brought to | | | | the damage. The real villain is |
| | wild flowers, the more xenophobic | | | | Britain for the fur trade in 1929 | | | | not mink but agricultural inten- |
| | of the ecological chauvinists claimed | | | | and began escaping from the word | | | | sification. |
| | that rabbits were not native anyway | | | | go. It was not until the fifties | | 8 | | Nature conservation is a cultural |
| | and were the result of human mistakes. | | | | that they began to breed in the | | | | project, and however it's dressed |
| | Many argued that it was only because | | | | wild, occupying an ecological | | | | up, the killing is done for |
| | the rabbit's predators have been so | | | | niche somewhere between polecats, | | | | cultural ends. If we are being |
| | persecuted that its numbers have | | | | stoats and otters. At that time | | | | persuaded to protect the nature |
| | expanded unchecked. | | | | polecats had been persecuted to | | | | we like from the nature we don't, |
5 | | Then came a story about a predator | | | | near extinction by the gamekeeping | | | | we'd better have more of an open |
| | that no one seemed to want to | | | | frenzy of the late 19th century. | | | | public debate about it than we |
| | encourage. Animal Liberation Front | | | | Stoats, too, were a common sight | | | | do at present, and thorough |
| | activists broke into a fur farm in | | | | hanging on barbedwire fences. | | | | investigation into the attitudes, |
| | the New Forest to liberate thousands | | 7 | | It is estimated that there are | | | | prejudices and values that are |
| | of captive mink. Perhaps it was | | | | more than 100,000 wild mink in | | | | being bandied about. |
| | because the mink are non-native | | | | Britain, and a similar number | | | | |
| | predators that seemed complicit in | | | | suffering in fur farms. The | | | | Guardian Weekly |