A Naturalist Speaks

 Keep The Ban

For most of my life, until a few years ago when walking became too

painful, I had been a photographer and a naturalist. When I was

working in Scotland, during my posting to RAF Lossiemouth; I earned a reputation for going on walks for hours.

Some of the best photos I took were of the fishing fleet, and the cormorants around the docks.

For years, I was a member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, until I found out that my money was not going to help the birds, it was going to build office blocks in Sandy, Berkshire. I did not want to stop paying as I am a lover of nature, but at the same time I saw my money was not going to what it was intended for, so I had no other options as the birds were not being helped. It is not known generally, but during those years I became a small landowner in Scotland as I bought a small patch of land to give migration birds a rest on their long journey from Canada/USA to Russia.

Though I have taken many thousands of images of nature, I consider my best moment came when I was in Lac La Biche, Alberta when I was staying with a friend who died in the Winter of 2009. During that Summer, I had been watching the flight of a Hummingbird, and after several failed attempts I did get a photo of her; she was so small I had to enlarge the image ten-fold to see her.

As a naturalist I am in favour of the project Keep The Ban on hunting. People who say the hunts provide jobs are fooling themselves, as the stable staff get only a pittance for their work, and any farmer in the area will tell you the hunt will ruin his crops as they chase a poor fox to death.

There are some things, that once you see them you cannot unsee them; I saw a film from a hunt saboteur that made me cry; the film was of a poor dog that had got injured and as it couldn't hunt the owner would have put it down if the saboteur hadn’t stepped in. The look on the dog’s face will forever haunt me as we’ve had dogs and cats from rescue sites for many years.

I don’t think of Keep The Ban as being a political issue, I will support any party that is against hunting. The only hunting I would approve of is if the hunters become the hunted; even then it wouldn't be the same as the hunts let their dogs tear the foxes to pieces, and we would not be allowed to do that to a hunt member.

As we live near some woods, I often hear a vixen calling her cubs at night, several years ago I used to sit out in our park at night and watch them at play. Foxes do not kill cats, dogs, or hurt babies; they only kill small prey such as mice and voles.

We did lose one of our cats to a fox, but though it broke my heart to lose Smudge, I can understand why she was taken; it was a really severe winter and the vixen had her pups to feed, so I cannot blame her.

Some very good news has come out this week, more and more farmers and lad owners have banned hunts on their land; and the hunting groups are now under investigation for breaking several laws.