Google Scholar. 89 Moreover, otters are not hunted by fishermen, but by people whose notions of fun are to go out and kill something.Footnote Is there no legislation which would enable, say, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to get upon the track of the Workington murderers and make them suffer? . WebOregons sea otters disappeared in flash of destruction, as one small part of an ocean-spanning fur boom driven by demand for their lush pelts. Otter hunting presents to him a picturesque scene, with the scarlet-coated, white-breeched men armed with spears, with shaggy hounds, and the landscape set with great marsh marigolds. I do not find this in the least hard to believe.Footnote The Humanitarian League was dissolved in 1919, and the main organisation to campaign against otter hunting became the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, founded in 1924. Sea otters were locally extinct in British Columbian waters in Canada, until a plane containing a romp of otters arrived and set off a population boom with . There is no danger, no risk, absolutely no excuse for this form of baiting except the insensate one of a lust for blood.Footnote What humbugs we are!Footnote For Johnston, otter hunters were not cruel they were simply misinformed. He is remembered today for his monumental two-volume Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages (191921); for his natural history collections now held at Kew, the British Museum, and London Zoo; and for his identification of the okapi (Okapi johnstoni) in the Congo in 1901.Footnote He did however come to the conclusion that their conduct had been reprehensible.Footnote Drawing his facts from The Field of 8th October 1910, Collinson explained that the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds had recorded a total of twenty-two otters, the Border Counties accounted for twenty-five, and the Hawkstone finished with forty. Here Bates presents a very personal and very committed attack on otter hunting in a style of writing quite unlike his own. Exploitation of otters Like the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports advocated the state regulation of British wildlife, and were outraged by the hunting and coursing of highly sentient creatures for sport. In August 1935 Cruel Sports reported that a group of women from the Leeds branch had protested against the Kendal and District Otter Hounds in July. 2017. feel thankful that the Masters of the various packs of otter hounds do not share this opinion.Footnote CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Unlike the working men who may have regretted the spontaneous event, sportsmen not only celebrated their own form of killing; they had created organisations that expected it to occur on a regular basis. . In these terms, this exceptional incident was absorbed into the broader campaign against blood sports. Salt, Henry, Seventy Years Among Savages (London, 1921) p. 141 10 Six weeks later, on 9th September, the magazine's editor revealed that many readers had taken umbrage with the article, and invited further correspondence on the subject. Williamson, Henry, Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers (London, 1927)Google Scholar; At dawn she withdrew to the river, where she was again hunted, but after several hours pursuit managed to escape. Some of the recurring questions included: Have we reached such a pitch of humaneness in our treatment of wild animals that no further legislation is desired? and What made it more desirable for individuals, rather than Societies, to promote such legislation? These questions got no response from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the putative otter hunting bill became for many just another means to criticise its inadequacy and hypocrisy. With this in mind Johnston seemed to overlook the behaviour of otter hunters and instead placed blame on anglers: Salmon is produced in such enormous abundance in North America and Norway, and is so very unlikely (owing to its habit of resorting to the sea) to become exterminated in British waters by the otter, that it would be a shame if this remarkable aquatic weasel. It was the only organisation that called for the legal protection of otters at the beginning of the twentieth century.Footnote 66. (Cheers.) The following month the four-page leaflet, Otters and Men, was issued at the price of 1d. . Osman, Colin, Man, Felix Hans (18931985), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 03 March 2016. the magazine had a massive readership. Writing in the Morning Leader, Colonel Coulson described how an otter, which had been hunted for seven hours, was struck and killed by a blow from a metal-shod stick wielded by an otter hunter in a boat. Instead, it tells the reader that the otter is hunted partly because it is tradition to do so; partly because he provides excellent sport, and partly because it is still necessary to regulate his kind.Footnote This pack disbanded in 1919 when he became master of the Hawkstone Otter Hounds. He also pointed out that Geoffrey Hill of Hawkstone had killed 544 otters between 1870 and 1884, and that William Collier of Culmstock had also accounted for 144 between 1879 and 1884. And as a relatively inexpensive sport, such social changes meant otter hunting had become a less appealing target for them. Members of the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports were also outraged by this murderous behaviour and equally critical of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but they had a slightly different response to the event. Google Scholar. On 4th April 1928, for instance, several daily newspapers reported that an otter had been stoned to death by fifty working men in Workington. Another aspect of otter hunting that attracted critical attention was the type of people involved and the behaviour it induced. At its centre an exhausted hunter holds an otter aloft over a pack of baying otterhounds. to gratify the anglers craze.Footnote and broadly disregarded spearing as one of the blood-thirsty methods used by our forefathers.Footnote Total loading time: 0 51. The History of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds, Rod, Pole and Perch: Angling and Otter-hunting Sketches, Putting Animals into Politics: The Labour Party and Hunting in the First Half of the Twentieth Century, A blow to the men in Pink: The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Opposition to Hunting in the Twentieth Century, Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers, The Otter Speared, Portrait of the Earl of Aberdeen's Otterhounds, or the Otter Hunt, http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing-art-gallery/collections.html. Throughout the essay he applies the term to a number of situations to discredit the idea that animals are killed for public safety, natural history, protection of farmers or sporting exercise.Footnote The commercial trade began in And as to the women, they evidently have no sense of shame, or pity, for the torture these poor little creatures undergo.Footnote 37, The first malpractice to be exposed in otter hunting itself was an incident that occurred on the River Tweed on 6th July 1907. Coulson, Otter Worrying A Protest, The Humanitarian, August 1908, 601. The latter is essentially a personal consideration of riverside life along the Ouse and the Nene. The sport became increasingly popular in the late nineteenth century and the Edwardian period. Johnston condemned otter hunting and urged the government to give the mammal legal protection in his 1903 publication British Mammals. CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also 10. Has data issue: false Although its founder Edward Hulton was a Conservative, the publication was politically left leaning and its editors Stefan Lorent and Tom Hopkinson took an anti-fascist stance. Sea otter conservation began in the early 20th century, when the sea otter was nearly extinct due to large-scale commercial hunting. The sea otter was once abundant in a wide arc across the North Pacific ocean, from northern Japan to Alaska to Mexico. The recent exposure in Devonshire, where a master of otter hounds was sentenced to imprisonment. By enlisting the opinion of H. E. Bates, the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports hoped this sentiment would not only reach a more popular readership, but also move such people into joining the campaign against otter hunting. Published online by Cambridge University Press: The otter is as good an excuse as the next one; and, after all, the beast usually escapes.Footnote J. C. Bristow-Noble, Madame, 22nd July 1905, 171, cited in Cheesman and Cheesman, Diaries of the Crowhurst Otter Hounds, p. 43 [Actually it was Mrs Kellogg-Jenkins, Battle, who had been born in San Francisco, 1911 census]. If the mere presence of women was condemned, then the role they played in, and joy they gained from, the death of the otter was shocking. Instead, it focussed on one man, Mr Sidney Varndell. The sea otter population has rebounded to nearly three thousand individuals 77. Diana Donald argues, however, that the resulting canvas, six and a half feet high, had no precedent in British sporting art in the way it combined archaic pageantry and brutal actuality with the hunter twisting the spear so the otter does not immediately fall to the hounds. He sat on the governing bodies of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Canine Defence League, the Cat's Protection League, the Pit-Ponies Protection Society, and the Animals Friend Society.Footnote 68 Newcastle Daily Journal, 29th May 1914, cited at http://www.henrysalt.co.uk/friends/colonel-coulson. Why Otters Are Endangered? Solved 1. "*Sea otters are native to the western cosst of [After a pause.] Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-knlg2 23 Brought up as a sportsman and still a keen angler, this well-known Northumberland country gentleman and Justice of the Peace was a staunch and fearless friend of animals.Footnote About Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, July 1928, 85. 2. Why Otters Are Endangered? - Earth and World 2022 He stressed that he was not a sportsman and had never shot a bird nor hooked a fish in my life but became involuntarily the witness of an otter hunt while sketching beside a pool. Alongside the overall decrease of otter hunts and otter hunters was the dramatic reduction of advertised meets and reports in the national and regional press. Bates begins by considering the main excuse for killing otters, the supposed need to reduce predation on fish. 14 When the otter reached temporary sanctuary in a holt twenty men got on to the bank and endeavoured by jumping and other means to force the earth down into the unfortunate animal's hiding place until worn out by fatigue and fright surrounded by men and dogs the otter became as easy prey to its enemies. Although Coleridge's speech was welcomed with loud cheers and rapturous applause, the chairman of the committee was far from impressed by the impromptu inclusion of the subject. 67. In these terms the iconic image of Varndell could be seen as positively publicising the face of otter hunting. Summer hunting across rugged river valleys offered strenuous physical exertion in the sun, whilst facilitating a picnic and a paddle. 57 The idea of the fairer sex taking part in manly or savage amusements was regularly invoked to shock the public.Footnote Raymond, Graham The public profile of otter hunting was raised by the publication in 1927 of Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers. WebNo hunting (except waterfowl) during removed only by the user. 11. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1906 Annual Report (1906), p. 127. Justice for the Animals, Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, October 1929, 128. This opposition to the Bill was surprisingly effective. Which of the following By 2016, over 4,000 river otters had been translocated to 23 states. 52. It argued that if it were necessary, otters should be cleanly killed, i.e. This in a sense gave the League the moral high ground. It may be outlawed, yet in 1977 one single New York dealer smuggled, amongst many other furs, the skins of 15,470 neotropical and 271 giant otters into the country (Eltringham 1984). [23] He reported that around 450 otters were killed every year which meant that in my short life of thirty years. 63 Sea urchins are voracious grazers of kelp. For such people the laceration of an otter's living flesh is an amusing thing. and provided further evidence of the barbarous spirit engendered by indulgence in blood sports.Footnote 42. WebSea otters were hunted to near extinction during the maritime fur trade of the 1700s and 1800s. Rogers, William, Records of the Cheriton Otter Hounds (Taunton, 1925)Google Scholar. Opponents, on the other hand, were offended by this inclusivity. The aesthetic quality of animals was also important to him. In 1901 Coulson had written that: Some of the clergy revel in it the very men who pose afterwards as the expounders of high morality.Footnote Google Scholar. The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports publicised its views in much the same way as the Humanitarian League and from January 1927 they started producing a monthly journal Cruel Sports.Footnote 88. WebThe feeding habits of otters vary greatly depending on species, location, and time of year or season. The Hawkstone Otter Hounds disbanded in 1914, putting down most of their hounds. Once all of them are out, plug up the hole and it is as simple as that. 73 Otters . In addition to this justification, any suggestion of cruelty is light-heartedly dismissed: It is improbable that most of the people who go otter hunting worry much about the humanities or the natural law of the thing. 4 . Hunting is a good excuse for a hard day's exercise. Otters today are faced with habitat loss and food scarcity, apart from killing due to . 14. sea otters, urchins and starfish make Rather than defend its sentient or sporting qualities, he was much more concerned with its aesthetic role in the landscape. Inside there is a six page pictorial feature, Hunting the Otter, written by Douglas Macdonald Hastings. The Master of the Wye Valley Otter Hounds, on the other hand, styled himself as a utilitarian, hunting through the war not for sport, but in order to keep down the head of otters in the interests of the fisheries.Footnote 35 WebA scientist designed an experiment to test an. 71. By placing value on the life of the animal, it was not the act of killing that was condemned, but rather the killers reaction to such an act. John Mackenzie points out that Landseer did not decry human participation in the raw cruelty of the natural world. Downing, Graham, The Hounds of Spring. was fully aware of the power of publicity and as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did not oppose blood sports, this proposal was a radical move. Bobcats and otters or their pelts must be delivered to an agent of the Conservation Department for registration or tagging before selling, transferring, tanning or mounting by April 10. These public demonstrations shed light on the respectability of the animal welfare movement. during the fur hunting period in the 18th and 19th centuries. 7 F. Pamphlet Series. The hunting and killing of female otters during the breeding season was a recurring theme in anti-hunting literature. 65. Colonel W. Lisle B. Coulson, The Otter Worry, in Henry Salt, ed., British Blood Sports: Let us go out and kill something (1901), pp. In the Aleutian Islands, a massive and unexpected disappearance of sea otters has occurred since the 1980s. The cause of the decline is not known, although the observed pattern of disappearances is consistent with a rise in orca predation. Sea otters give live birth. Sea otter conservation - Wikipedia Captain T. W. Sheppard, Decadence of Otter Hunting, The Field, 20th October 1906, 658. . By setting this against contemporary instances he insinuates the unchanging attitudes of otter hunters over the centuries. The idea of introducing a slaughter limit helps to explain why his case for protecting the otter did not play a part in the rhetoric of the Humanitarian League or the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports. 60. Men, women and children could all actively participate together in this sport. He followed the Cheriton Otter Hounds from 1924 and subscribed to Records of the Cheriton Otter Hounds produced by William Rogers, Master, in 1925. 12 The regular otter hunter deliberately indulges in cruelty without the saving grace of feeling shame on the contrary, the returning cars and local tap rooms ring with the complacent boastings of the lords and ladies of creation.Footnote 12. 41 Twenty-five years later, Smith and his colleagues conducted two years of monitoring surveys at 1,200 sites across the state to assess how well the population was doing. Recognising that such causes may be dismissed as sickly sentimentality, the League made a point of stressing that their underlying principles were not merely a product of the heart. . 48. . This reversal shows that the campaigning did have an impact, albeit a small one, on the public perception of the activity. 6 . Bell-Irving, David Jardine, Tally-Ho: Fifty Years of Sporting Reminiscences (Dumfries, 1920), p. 120 An incredibly vile sport: Campaigns against Otter If anyone interpreted this anecdote with a smidgen of sentimentality, as a narrative of a protective mother rewarded for her heroic conduct with the release of her whelp, the harsher realities of such freedom were instantly put into perspective with a quotation from L. C. R. Cameron: Resentment at disturbance of the normal conditions impels her to leave her couch in which she has laid her cubs; the promptings of the maternal instinct compel her to return forthwith to her offspring. The image in question fronted the issue released on 22nd July 1939. See 16, Otter hunting was compared unfavourable to other types of hunting. The latter formed a pack of Otter Hounds in Llandinam, Wales, bearing his name in 1906. The Guardian, 9th May 2010. otters Varndell became huntsman in 1904. After introducing her pack, the Crowhurst Otter Hounds, the article listed the women who actively enjoyed the sport: Of the invariably large and influential following we may mention Mrs Mantell, Mrs Killogg-Jenkins, and Miss Woodruffe, Mrs Trimmer and Miss and Mrs J. Awbrey.Footnote 2956Google Scholar; We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. A barrister by profession, Coleridge who hated cruelty in all its formsFootnote 3.84. 88 Humanitarian, April 1918, 100, cited by . Sydney Barthropp, Master of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds, died fighting in France in 1914, which led to their disbandment soon after. Scientists and tribal leaders say reintroducing otters would restore balance to degraded kelp forests, boost fish species, protect shorelines, generate tourist dollars WebThe otters were then protected by the international fur seal treaty, which banned sea otter hunting. Now, Dr. Estes said, more than 90 percent of those otters are gone. In just a few decades, this bustling civilization has withered into a ghost town. You can travel down 10 miles of coastline and never see an animal, he said. The loss is more than cosmetic. In the Aleutians delicate seascape, otters hold the entire ecosystem together. Should Otters be Hunted?, Madame, 9th September 1905, 515, cited in Cheesman and Cheesman, Diaries of the Crowhurst Otter Hounds, p. 44. He argued that if the government cared for the preservation of beauty in England, the otter would long ago have been placed on the protected list, and would not have been subjected to the undiscriminating attacks of sportsmen.Footnote Coulson, Otter Worrying A Protest, The Humanitarian, August 1908, 61. For almost 40 years, the otters in southeast Alaska scrapped by. Joseph Collinson argued that a deplorable feature of this sport is that its followers include all sorts and conditions of people: ministers of religion with their wives, young men and young women, sometimes even boys and girls. As otters were removed during the hunting years, there was a large decrease in the catches of fish species from the eelgrass habitats. The second letter from An Old Fashioned Sportsman denounced otter hunting on sporting grounds and used the Barnstaple cat-worrying case to strengthen his argument: I belong to an old family of Tory sportsman who have been brought up to view with disgust such amusements as involve the fiendish cruelty and worrying of one poor little animal for many hours by a motley crowd of men, women and even children, some armed with spears.
Creepy Text To Speech,
Forest Ave Sober Living Portland Maine,
Pearl High School Football Coach,
Articles A