You know Britain is seriously at risk from a slash-and-burn and shock-and-awe ConDem coalition government when even the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds runs a campaign to protest against spending cuts. As good as the RSPB is it can hardly be characterised as an organisation which you would expect to see at the barricades, is it?
Sociologist Anthony Giddens writes about the Catalan Parliament’s recent ban to outlaw bullfights and the British Government’s recent ban on hunting.
Whilst short-term political manoeuvring is part of any explanation of the timing of such bans, for sociologists there has been a discernible long-term modern trend or social process towards the appreciation and conservation of nature and increasing concern with the welfare of animals. Modern cultures are generally animal welfare cultures. From the sixteenth century onwards, but gathering pace during eighteenth-century industrialization and nineteenth-century urbanization, as more people became less directly involved in working with animals in agriculture, a more detached view of human–animal relations emerged that spread across social groups and classes. With the growth in power of the modern state and its monopolization of the means of violence also came a revulsion at the use of violence against both humans and animals so that previously enjoyable animal ‘sports’ came to be re-classified as just so many instances of intolerable cruelty. Gradually, animals became the subject of increasing moral concern and any social practices which harmed or injured them were called into question. Similarly, the mass slaughter of animals for food had to be hidden out of sight behind the scenes of everyday life. Adopting this long-term perspective helps us to better understand why we remain so much more disturbed by animal cruelty than people were in previous times. But whether that makes us ‘better people’ is an entirely different matter.
The elephant enclosure was extensive.
I made my first visit to Howletts earlier this week and will only briefly comment on it here. This is because I also want to visit soon Port Lympne. Both Howletts and Port Lympne are run by the Aspinall Foundation and was established by John Aspinall in 1957. His son, Damian, continues his father’s work. The foundation’s objectives are:
There are many positive things to say about Howletts and the way in which the animals are kept; however, the visit raised many issues of concern which I want to consider further and, after visiting Port Lympne, I want to write a more thoughtful post than this brief mention. These issues of concern are not directly to do with the animals’ welfare as they appear to be very well looked after but more about the challenge of an organisation like the Aspinall Foundation (and others) in achieving their objectives.
A black bird makes off with a red berry from a nearby Amelanchier tree.
Earlier this week another maturing baby Herring gull took her first steps on grass near my home in Old Town Hastings. She’s taking her first flight away from the nearby roof where she was raised over the last two months or so. I haven’t seen her since. I have to resist the urge to interfere by making an attempt to catch these fledgelings and get them to safe ground at, say, the boating lake, Swan Lake, on the seafront, which essentially functions as a creche for baby gulls. Any involvement in a gulls’ life should only take place if they’re sick, injured or too young to look after themselves. This one looks very healthy. So, I leave her to her fate. As I must do with mine.
One of the baby Herring gulls exercising their wings and learning how to fly. Much like how a human baby learns how to walk only more interesting.
Flying baby gull!
We’re now down to two baby Herring Gulls having started out with three, then, plus two, making a group of five. Of the three no longer present I can see that one of them died and the baby gulls have been feasting on the carcass. I don’t know what happened to the other two.
The baby gulls have reached the stage where many of them are learning to fly and leaving their nesting area. For example, the remaining two baby gulls we’ve been watching race around the flat area of the roof, spread their wings, flap madly, make a lot of noise and, particularly when it’s windy, raise themselves some 4-6 inches off the ground, well, the roof. The Old Town is busy with baby gulls who have left their nests walking around the streets, making short flights and learning how to survive. Quite often I see parent gulls looking after their offspring. Many of them congregate at Swan Lake, a boating lake on the seafront, which functions, essentially, as a creche for baby Herring gulls. If they can make it there, well, I think they’re going to be alright.
The Observer profiles artist Polly Morgan, who explains her justification for using taxidermy in her art.
As she explains it: “a) I don’t want to get in trouble with the animal-rights nutters, and b) even though I eat meat and killing for meat is quite a natural thing to do, killing something and trying to make it look alive again is not a very natural thing to do.”
