THE DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE

By E. B. LLOYD

There is one most regrettable result of killing for sport (and more especially of game-bird shooting) which, though important in itself, is yet frequently overlooked in discussing the question. This is the destruction of wild life involved, other than those forms directly slaughtered for pleasure. Sir Harry Johnston has written forcibly of the necessity of insisting on the æsthetic value of wild animals in our landscape, and the desirability of preserving the species that remain, because they are beautiful and intellectually stimulating;[10] and the ordinary Nature lover, not to mention the naturalist, cannot but regard with detestation the ceaseless war of extermination waged by the devotees of “shooting” on so many of our finest and most interesting birds and mammals. Indeed, numbers of so-called bird-lovers not actively opposed to shooting might change their views if they would but reflect seriously on the damage to our native fauna, and the consequent dulling of the charm of our country-side, which game-preserving inevitably brings in its train. For—putting on one side the moral issue—our British “game birds” cannot compare, for interest and beauty, with many of the species which are sacrificed on their behalf, or rather on behalf of the thoughtless folk who slaughter them for amusement. Moreover, it must be remembered that we do not even possess any great tract of natural country as a National Park or reserve, such as Yellowstone Park in the United States of America, or its Canadian equivalent, or the grand Swedish Wild Park in Lapland.

The gamekeeper, generally speaking, is the most ruthless of beasts of prey. If he is a good gamekeeper his great aim is to see that there is always a plentiful supply of partridges in his master’s fields, pheasants in his master’s coverts, or grouse on his master’s moors, as the case may be. With this object in view he endeavours to extirpate all wild life which either is, or is supposed by him to be, in any way inimical to the birds in his charge; and, unfortunately, owing to the abysmal ignorance of the average keeper in all that relates to Nature’s intricate interplay of what we choose to call useful, harmless, and harmful forms, the list of supposed enemies is a long one.[11] Moreover, the special position occupied by the gamekeeper gives him the power (a power all too frequently exercised) of shooting, either for amusement or profit, any strange or rare bird that strikes his fancy, besides making it very difficult to restrain his murderous propensities even in the case of legally protected species. On the whole it may safely be said that gamekeepers as a class are just as unappreciative of the true beauty and interest of animal life as are their masters the sportsmen. To quote one who, among all living writers, is probably at once the most sympathetic and penetrating observer and the most delightful interpreter of wild bird life: “The gentleman, like the gamekeeper, cannot escape the reflex action of the gun in his hand. He, too, has grown incapable of pleasure in any rare or noble or beautiful form of life until he has it in his hand—until he has exercised his awful power and blotted out its existence.”[12]

Some “Vermin.”

To come now to the species which are thus warred upon on the plea of facilitating “sport.” Taking the mammals first—and the list of our British mammals is at best a miserably scanty one—we find that, leaving out of consideration such exceedingly scarce ones as the wild cat, polecat, and pine-marten, and such admitted marauders as the stoat and rat, there still remain among those classed by gamekeepers as “vermin,” the badger, the weasel, and the hedgehog: the first perhaps the most interesting of all our wild quadrupeds, the two latter certainly not the least interesting and charming. Yet although the best authorities are agreed that the harm done by the badger to “game” is almost infinitesimal, the keeper is usually his sworn foe.[13] Badgers also suffer at the hands of the fox-hunting fraternity, being destroyed because they are said to be harmful to young foxes, and because they sometimes open up fox-earths which have been “stopped” in readiness for the hunt.[14] This, it may be noted, affords another example of the falseness of the argument so often advanced that fox-hunting is “fair” because the fox has every chance left him to escape. Fortunately the badger is a very shy, nocturnal animal, exceedingly wary and clever, and in some few districts the landlords are enlightened enough to see to it that he is left in peace.

The fiery little weasel—ruthlessly persecuted—is one of the farmers’ most trusty allies, for its food consists chiefly of voles, mice, and rats. As for the hedgehog, deadly enemy of slugs and snails and insects though it be, the fact that it will suck eggs if it gets the chance suffices to make its corpse a welcome addition to the gamekeeper’s museum—that collection of the rotting bodies of birds and small mammals nailed or hung on to a tree or fence, with which all who have rambled much in the woods and fields of our country-side must be familiar. What a motley company may often be seen thus strung up on one of these gibbets in some upland hedgerow or woodland glade: a selection of stoats, weasels, moles, hedgehogs, crows, jackdaws, magpies, jays, owls, sparrow-hawks, kestrels, merlins, and so forth, according to the locality. The writer has actually seen—and it is not an isolated instance—that delightful bird, the green woodpecker, occupying a place among these trophies of the keeper’s prowess; and with regard to another victim, the harmless nightjar (Wordsworth’s “buzzing dor-hawk, twirling his watchman’s rattle about”), whose strange, churning note is so pleasant a feature of an evening ramble in woody or heathy districts, one keeper told Mr. Hudson: “I don’t believe a word about their swallowing pheasants’ eggs, though many keepers think they do. I shoot them, it’s true, but only for pleasure.”[15] The kestrel again—the expressively named “windhover,” which hangs aloft poised so gracefully against the wind—

a little hawk which preys almost exclusively on voles, mice, insects, etc., is a valuable friend to the farmer, and certainly no enemy to the gamekeeper. Yet large numbers are destroyed by the latter; for as Charles St. John, himself an ardent sportsman, wrote in his well-known “Wild Sports of the Highlands”:[16] “It is impossible to persuade a keeper that any bird called a hawk can be harmless; much less … that a hawk can be useful.” And much the same still applies, it is shameful to relate, to other extremely useful species, such as the barn-owl—which farmers ought to encourage—and the tawny-owl, etc. Worse than this: incredible as it may sound, there are several well-authenticated cases of nightingales having been destroyed by keepers because their singing kept the pheasants awake at night! And Mr. Hudson, among other instances, records a case where a whole heronry was blotted out, the birds being shot on their nests after breeding had begun, because their cries disturbed the pheasants; and yet another, where a whole tract of woodland estate was denuded of doves, woodpeckers, nuthatches, blackbirds, missel and song thrushes, chaffinches, and many other smaller birds, all of which were shot, any nests found being also destroyed. The keeper said he was not going to have the place swarming with birds that were no good for anything, and were always eating the pheasants’ food.[17] Though these, of course, are extreme cases, they are notable as showing to what lengths this folly may be carried—what monstrous sacrifices are made to the insatiable Moloch of game-preserving.

Besides such striking birds as the brilliant, eager jay, the elvish magpie, the crows, the fierce sparrow-hawk, and the bold little merlin, which are still, relatively speaking, common, and the various beautiful birds of prey—the kite, the harriers, the peregrine falcon, and many others now almost exterminated—the British craze for game-preserving has led to the bitter persecution of two especially fine species, both of which have been almost extirpated in Southern England, at any rate—the raven and the absolutely innocent buzzard. The former, round which centres so much of myth, legend, and story, is now seldom met with, save in a few secluded mountainous districts, though less than forty years ago the head-keeper of Exmoor Forest was able to record the destruction of fifty-two of these grand birds in a single year;[18] while the Common Buzzard, which in virtue of its voice, appearance, large size, and grandeur of flight, is about the nearest approach to the eagle still left to us, is now, alas! exceedingly uncommon. Not long ago, while wandering near Dartmoor, I was fortunate enough to watch six buzzards floating high in the air together, circling round above one another in great spirals, and uttering from time to time their wild plaintive cry: an extremely rare sight in England to-day, and one the beauty and impressiveness of which I shall not soon forget. Any true nature-lover who has watched these splendid soaring birds on the wing will readily understand what an irreparable loss the gamekeeper’s ban on them is inflicting on our landscape, more especially in these days when, in spite of the trammels of modern civilisation, an ever-increasing number of people are learning to appreciate the joy of a more direct communion with wild nature, and, incidentally, are discovering the truth of the poet’s words:

The Killing Mania.

Next to the gamekeeper, who, after all, is but the instrument of the game-shooter, and the “collector” (whose crimes in respect of our rarer avifauna would fill a volume), the worst sinners are those gun-sportsmen whose amusement is the wanton destruction of wild life, without even the flimsy pretext that their victims are eatable. Nothing comes amiss to them—from seals,[19] and rare birds like the osprey and the great northern diver, to seagulls, shore-birds, and waders, and even poor little pipits and thrushes. These are the folk of whom Sir Harry Johnston has truly observed that “they are often not nearly so interesting, physically and mentally, as the creatures they destroy.” They are dingy-souled Philistines, to whom a dead bird in the hand is worth more than many living birds in the bush. Some even profess themselves bird-lovers.[20] A West Country farmer’s wife once observed to me: “My husband is a great lover of birds; he’s got several cases full of stuffed ones that he shot himself.” This is as though one should prefer an ancient Egyptian mummy to the chance of watching and studying a living breathing being of that race. Little wonder if, when thinking of this senseless and careless and callous destruction of so much feathered loveliness, we should feel inclined to echo Robert Burns’s angry words:

Moreover, the “deep-rooted instinct,” about which we hear so much, can easily be diverted to a far finer, more beautiful, and more useful pleasure than the absurd, antiquated, and useless one of killing for sport. I can speak from my own personal experience in saying that the actual thrill and joy of tracking and watching wild creatures for study and observation is far superior to that which is derived from tracking and watching them for slaughter. In other words, hunting animals to see how they live is finer sport than hunting them to see how they die.

It seems, therefore, that the real issue is between Natural History as opposed to Unnatural History. On the one hand, grouse, pheasants (“semi-domesticated exotics”), and partridges (very likely imported), reared at immense cost for slaughter: on the other, all these infinitely more varied and natural and gracious creatures—the true sylphs and elves of our woodlands—whose glad, free beauty so thrilled Meredith, and drew from him that impassioned cry:

And all this wild, winged life possesses a twofold beauty: for it is beautiful both in itself, and—as poetry all down the ages has borne witness—in its influence on the mind of man.

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