as otters were removed during the hunting years

As the otter hunters arrived at the meet, the first thing they saw was a line of demonstrators with banners bearing the words Abolish the Shameful Sport of Otter-hunting and Stand up for the Helpless. In 1939 another iconic image came out on the front cover of the Picture Post (Figure 5). Reflecting on the period, W. H. Rogers of the Cheriton Otter Hounds wrote: Some doubts were expressed as to the propriety of hunting while so many poor fellows were being killed and wounded in the trenches, but the view prevailed that if the Hunt was once dropped it would be very difficult to restart it, and that those who were away would wish us to keep things going against their return.Footnote Coleridge, Bell and others argued in articles in Animals Friend magazine and The Humanitarian that this reversal was unconstitutional and illogical.Footnote This indicates that despite the ongoing challenge from the anti-blood-sports movement, in 1939 hunting rhetoric still informed the public's perception of otters and otter hunting. In 1965, sea otters were translocated from Amchitka Island (Aleutian Islands) to the outer coast of southeastern Alaska and by the early 1990's, small numbers of sea otters were documented at the mouth of Glacier Bay. WebFrom 1941 till 1957, an interim agreement between the U.S. and Canada regulated the harvesting of sea otters. Stephen Coleridge was the second son of Lord Chief Justice of England, John Duke Coleridge, and great nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 32 Pring, Geoffrey, Records of the Culmstock Otterhounds, c. 17901957 (Exeter, 1958), p. 35 33 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. Salt edited the two Humanitarian League journals: Humanity, later renamed The Humanitarian (18951919) and The Humane Review (19001910). According to Coulson those who engaged in the kill became virtually maddened by it.Footnote 3 In 1928, it showed a cheerful young woman glorying over being blooded at an otter-hunt (Figure 4).Footnote Bell argued that it offered an insightful glimpse into the mind of the sporting man,Footnote 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. 54 28 First, he insisted that cats had been used, as he could not always get hold of a badger. He proposed that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should take its courage in both hands and accept his amendment: That it be an instruction from this General Meeting of Subscribers of the RSPCA to the Committee, forthwith to secure its presentation to Parliament, the object of which shall be to make otter hunting illegal..Footnote 62. About the Otter, Cruel Sports, June 1928, 73. . 61 . 82 Google Scholar. It may be that he saw otter hunting as a useful device for testing both the political elasticity of the Society and the penetrative influence of the Humanitarian League. And as to the women, they evidently have no sense of shame, or pity, for the torture these poor little creatures undergo.Footnote The hunting and killing of female otters during the breeding season was a recurring theme in anti-hunting literature. 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. A subsection in the Hunted Otter (1911) entitled Hunted for Seven Hours described the lengthy pursuit of a female otter by the Culmstock Otter Hounds in 1910. 12. This approval generated considerable adverse reactions and increased press coverage. The men then lit some cotton waste, smoked out the otter, and pelted it with stones. 75. The photograph was taken by Felix Man, who had been an active photojournalist since 1929, had emigrated from Germany to London in 1934 and was chief photographer for Picture Post from 1938 to 1945.Footnote women too seem frenzied with the desire to kill.Footnote 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 Figure 3. 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 and 67 42. He is astonished that the law of this country still allows this rotten and most bloody exhibition of behaviour and that such repugnant bloodiness survives in a so-called civilised age and country.Footnote George Greenwood, Chapter 1: The Cruelty of Sport, in Henry Salt, ed., Killing for Sport (1914), p. 6. 16, Otter hunting was compared unfavourable to other types of hunting. Some inhuman wretch: Animal Maiming and the Ambivalent Relationship between Rural Workers and Animals, Rural History, 25 (2014), 13360CrossRefGoogle Scholar. and broadly disregarded spearing as one of the blood-thirsty methods used by our forefathers.Footnote . . The underlying motivation for these very specific criticisms is a much broader belief that all living beings feel pain and suffer. 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. The hypocrisy of clergy preaching high moral standards and Christian virtues yet killing for fun was regularly exploited by members of the Humanitarian League. A barrister by profession, Coleridge who hated cruelty in all its formsFootnote The first issue in 1939, for instance, sold 1,350,000 copies. Which of the following observations would provide the strongest WebSea otters were hunted to near extinction during the maritime fur trade of the 1700s and 1800s. 9, In this paper we consider the ways campaigns against otter hunting were carried out in the period 1900 to 1939. 14. 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 unintended consequences. The otter is as good an excuse as the next one; and, after all, the beast usually escapes.Footnote He had seen a Master of a pack last summer throw a man into the river for striking at an otter with a walking stick.Footnote of compassion, love, gentleness, and universal benevolence, the Humanitarian League clearly set itself apart from other reform oriented bodies. 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. Otter hunters were of course proud of this fact; it was one of the many peculiarities that set it apart from other field sports. There is no danger, no risk, absolutely no excuse for this form of baiting except the insensate one of a lust for blood.Footnote 79. 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. 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. She is about to be afforded the pleasure, the privilege, of being harried and hunted and having her living guts ripped out by forty human beings, twenty or thirty hounds and some terriers.Footnote 5 Yet although Johnston was not directly involved, his argument brought into prominence the campaign for the otter. Throughout the period campaigners repeatedly pointed to this subject as proof of the inconsistency and heartlessnessFootnote Men, women and children could all actively participate together in this sport. UKWOT has He reported that in certain otter hunting regions such as Wales, Devonshire, and Sussex, the otter was being rapidly extinguished by the actions of unreflecting, red-faced, well-meaning, church going, rate-paying persons on the plea that it eats salmon or trout. When, however, other members of the Hunt were moved to action by the scandal,Footnote 3. 41 The letter argued that no reasonable excuse can be found for such conduct, misnamed sport which was morally wrong and barbaric. 18, The first published call for the protection of otters came from Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston (18581927) who has been described as one of the main instigators of the scramble for Africa on the ground and considered himself a naturalist above all else.Footnote young and thoughtful. 63 Rogers, W. H., Records of the Cheriton Otter Hounds (Taunton, 1925), p. 225 52. He was also a member of the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports and an unwavering opponent of otter hunting. Bates wrote a regular column, Country Life, in The Spectator, and two volumes of nature essays, Through the Woods (1936) and Down the River (1937). He wanted society to step back and reconsider the moral distinction between wild and domestic animals. 3.84. 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. [After a pause.] Douglas Macdonald Hastings, Hunting the Otter, Picture Post, 22nd July 1939, 5256, p. 52. 88. During the period 1969-72, 89 sea otters were translo-cated to British Columbia; 59 otters were released in Washington in 1969-70. 40, As a result of the Humanitarian League's campaigning, by 1906 otter hunting had become an issue of public debate. 7 We appeal to the chivalry of English men and women to make these so-called sports impossible.Footnote "useRatesEcommerce": false 36, The third, by Lady Florence Dixie, took the opportunity to publicise the Humanitarian League's work on blood sports. . . They were then handed leaflets. Nothing daunted, she returned at nightfall to the yard and once more endeavoured to free her cub, but with no better result than before. Human involvement is, rather, glorified as an imperative of command over nature, perfectly conveyed in The Otter Hunt.Footnote Cruel Sports magazine readily employed this strategy. 1. He saw that miserable little animal was pursued by men with large poles with spikes in their heads, men who would put on a tall hat and go to Church on Sundays, while women disgracing their sex stood by and lent their countenance and encouragement to the brutal proceedings. Wright, Catherine 81. 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. Even if she is prevented from doing so, she will hang about the place where they are, and perhaps be killed wet when the cubs, too, will perish.Footnote The 1911 pamphlet attempted to shed light on the overall death roll of otter hunting. The sea otter population has rebounded to nearly three thousand individuals Mr Rose of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds described the proposed Bill as most unfair and ridiculous and argued that otter hunting was grossly misrepresented: Long spiked poles are never used for the purposes suggested, but for assisting followers across ditches, rivers and fences. One of the main reasons Bates spoke out against otter hunting was that he felt that a small minority had reduced his chances of seeing the otter. Otter reintroductions were common during this time. For Johnston the otter was not a special animal, it was one of many beasts, birds, and reptiles which potentially added to the future happiness of the world. On 4th April 1928, for instance, several daily newspapers reported that an otter had been stoned to death by fifty working men in Workington. 34. 38 The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands (Edinburgh, 2005)Google Scholar. . 89. 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. The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports based itself on the radical elements of the Humanitarian League. .but an essential portion of any intelligible system of ethics or social science.Footnote 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. Summer hunting across rugged river valleys offered strenuous physical exertion in the sun, whilst facilitating a picnic and a paddle. It depicts Varndell as a solitary figure deep in thought.

Gerald Gschiel Height And Weight, Come Dine With Me Hannah And Nick Married, Articles A

as otters were removed during the hunting years

as otters were removed during the hunting years