Bulletin of the Animal Cruelty Investigation Group

January 2010

Kingfisher in our front garden, August 2009

I took the above photograph from our dining room window. The kingfisher was on our bird bath eyeing up the goldfish in the large pond beneath him. I use the picture here as a reminder that it is part of the deal for keeping animals of any type that you have to look after and protect them. The kingfisher could look at our fish but not take them as they are protected by a large net stretched across the pond. After watching him for some minutes and taking some photographs I then went outside for a better view but that scared him away.

Likewise we have rescued hens here. They live in a large enclosure protected by six foot mesh. We used to allow them to roam freely in our small orchard but years ago lost a number to an attack by a trespassing dog. Now we only allow them to wander safely in the confines of our garden but yesterday I saw that some had forced their way through our front gates and were on the roadside verge. We herded them back to safety and today I spent the morning wrapping our gates in sheep netting to make them hen-proof and to keep our hens safe. How often in the hunting debates did we hear country folk moan about foxes getting into hen houses and killing their hens. So what is the solution? Round up all the foxes, hold a trial and kill the guilty one? Just go out and kill any and every fox to be sure you got the guilty one? Or make your hen house secure? Is it really rocket-science to see the latter as the best solution? Vulnerable livestock need to be protected.

There are similar debates raging over otters and fish. Anyone with knowledge of the ecology of UK river systems will know that otters were, are and always should be in the future an integral part of our waterways. Anglers of old would welcome the otter to rivers as they would predate on pike and eels that really could reduce fish stocks. But angling has changed in recent years. Now we see purpose built ponds heavily stocked with fish. We see more and more competitive angling with the pressures on for bigger and bigger catches in the shortest possible time. In this situation any fish taken by otters is a curse so far as anglers are concerned. The solution as made clear in our last bulletin is to build otter-proof fencing to protect fishing interests. Some angling clubs are happy to do this but others appear reluctant. And lurking around the corner are always those with the aspiration of bringing back otter-hunting with hounds.

Having lived for many years now in a very rural situation it is my experience that there are three mindsets in the countryside. There are those who see wildlife as a blessing, enjoy its presence and seek to live in harmony with it. There are others for whom the countryside is just there, as towns are there, and they get on with their lives without thinking too much about the world around them. And there are those for whom wildlife is there to be exploited and killed for profit or fun. When you talk to the latter you realise that they perceive themselves to be in a constant war with wildlife. They see creatures that are there to be killed for fun or creatures that are damnable pests to be killed at every opportunity. We have a very small orchard. We have apples for ourselves, give others away and routinely allow the remainder to drop to feed the birds and other wildlife. As a result the birdsong can be terrific in the Autumn days, the fieldfares this year have been particularly abundant. But a few weeks ago there was a driven shoot on neighbouring farmland. For days after our paddock was silent. The curse of cruelty had swept by, killed a number of pheasants and scared every other species of bird witless. Yet those who performed that act regard themselves as “country lovers”!!

When a wood pigeon nested outside my daughter's bedroom some years ago our whole family marvelled at the way that the parent birds fed and cared for their young. Yet so many of these self-styled country lovers regard pigeons as mere vermin, like dirt on a shoe to be disposed of in any way possible. How sad that some are so completely blind to the natural beauty in the world around us.

General Election work

This will be our last bulletin before the next election. At that election and before it there will be literally thousands of hunt supporters working the length and breadth of the UK to guarantee the election to Parliament of hunt loving MPs. They lack the honesty to knock on doors and plead with residents to vote for their chosen candidate because he or she will bring back staghunting, foxhunting or hare coursing. They lack the honesty to hand out leaflets making it clear that this is their top priority. In previous elections we have seen the depth of their dishonesty by the instructions given to their foot-sloggers not to wear hunting gear or badges and if going in to housing estates not to take their 4x4s bedecked with hunting stickers! They are told to just hand out leaflets and if they are asked any questions to just talk about rural schools, pubs and shops or the state of the economy. This is the politics of fraud. The hunters care little if anything at all for any issue other than the return of their barbaric pastimes.

I know the Hunting Act 2004 has severe limitations and has proved difficult to enforce but that is reason to strengthen the act, not sweep it away all together. The hunters and their media allies tell us that they will repeal the act and then replace it by some kind of strict internal governance of hunting that will remove all the cruelty from the hunting field! This is utter rubbish. At present many hunters take pride in ignoring the law to continue with their cruelty. Does anyone seriously believe that in the absence of that law they will then obey some internally monitored "rules"? Look how widely the hunters flouted their own "rules" in the past. Hunting "rules" are a mere facade behind which all manner of savagery can lurk and flourish. Through our undercover work we talk to hunters and we know how they think. They view the aftermath of the next election as very much an opportunity for "pay back" against our wildlife and those who care to protect it. The next time a heavy snowfall brings hard times on the world of hunting because they cannot meet as usual you can expect a government sympathetic to hunting to be lobbied to provide government support to hunt kennels. This is not your worst nightmare, this is just round the corner. We already see hunters working to get government support for the training of hunt staff. I will try not to repeat myself but we could easily see government support, perhaps through lottery funding, of the likes of the Waterloo Cup. This annual festival of hare killing through coursing near Liverpool always suffered from the absence of facilities for the spectators. How about a nice shiny new grandstand in place of the bank on which the drunken yobs often huddled to cheer as the hare fled in terror?

This is the tragic future that we face but just consider how it might have been. No-one expected the police to turn out in droves to enforce the Hunting Act. Conversely we could reasonably have expected that police officers would visit hunts and tell them that the new law was as stated and would be enforced by the police. What actually happened was that many police officers stated publicly that the Hunting Act could not be enforced, they had no time to enforce it and simply would not bother. The real tragedy of that attitude was that the few hunts who did obey the new law were mocked by their colleagues for doing so and in due course, under hunting peer pressure, had to switch to often ignoring the law. Of course the Hunting Act is not the only law that some police officers choose to ignore. Look at the lack of enforcement of the legislation against using a mobile phone when driving. It may well be that under a welter of legislation and paperwork the police have to choose the crimes to target but their whole attitude to the Hunting Act has been misguided. A little bit of enforcement would have forced the hunts to adopt the humane alternative of draghunting. That would have flourished. There would be no return, ever, to animal hunting and the whole hunting conflict would have been resolved. Now we have the scenario that one way or another the hunters have kept their hounds in blood and they have politicians on-side to give them the repeal of the Hunting Act they crave. That will bring a return to all the pre-ban actions. People will still care to protect our wildlife, perhaps more now than ever before. In our changing countryside animal hunting with dogs from the coming summer onwards will be harder than ever. There will be more hound riots, mayhem and havoc than ever before.

Mink seem to be in decline as the otter population returns. Already we see extensive lobbying against the otter with the creature damned as a predator of fish. The diatribes against the otter almost portray the animal as if it were a newly introduced species rather than as an integral part of our natural fauna that was brought to the very brink of extinction in the UK by the ignorance, greed and callousness of some. With calls for the otter to be controlled rising to a crescendo does anyone really care to bet that a hunt-loving government would not allow the return of otterhunting? There would be a wealth of hunt-loving media ready to confirm that otterhunters really are “decent fellows” who respect and indeed "love" their quarry. The hunt-loving vets would fall over themselves in their rush to go public with their view that otterhunting with dogs really is the most humane way to kill otters. What a nightmare. Talk about turning the clock back to the dark ages.

But it is not yet confirmed that this nightmare will be inflicted on our wildlife. Yes, the hunters have prepared for years for the next election. Yes, they are awash with funding for their campaigns. Yes, they control large swathes of the media. But they have several problems. Firstly they are trying to force a cruel barbarism on a country that prides itself, even if not always showing it, on being tolerant, democratic and compassionate. The fun that a few might get from the death of an animal has to be set against the pleasure that many get from seeing it alive. Secondly there are some elements of the media that the hunters cannot control and they will never control the Internet. Compassionate caring people can link up and organise themselves.

When it comes to action for wildlife what can we all do? A little? A lot? Anything is better than nothing. You can be sure that the hunters will do just about anything to bring about the return of their brutal games. When it comes to what we might do to counter this I was struck by a recent report in our local paper. During the heavy snow a restaurant supervisor was blocked in. Instead of staying at home she got up at 5.00a.m. and then walked for almost 15 miles through deep snow to get to work. It took her 4 hours. Now you can read that and think she was mad but I prefer to admire her resolve and determination and ask where do you get that because I need some? She did all that to get to work; what might we do to help the wildlife we care so dearly for? There are plenty of ideas in the 'How you can Help' section of this bulletin but here is just one to consider now:-

Think about the candidate to support. If in your constituency there is no hope of a compassionate candidate being elected consider helping one nearby who might have a chance. Never ever think that your help will make no difference. Some of these seats are won or lost by just a few votes. That means that with the polls open for most of the day it is the few votes cast in say just the last minutes that can decide the outcome! It might be the votes from one small cul-de-sac that make the difference. In short recall the person walking 15 miles in the snow just to get to work and be prepared to go the extra mile for our wildlife.

You might also think of the suffering that will be heaped on our wildlife should we fail. Think of the coursed hare screaming in pain and terror when caught. When coursed late in the season most of the female hares were pregnant, some heavily so. Think of the lives that may be fully formed but are yet to be born that die inside her. Think of the stag that might be forced to run for 20 miles and all day before standing at bay, exhausted, before the dogs. Think of the suffering piled on the hunted fox as it battles with terriers below ground, that it may take the terriermen two hours or more to dig out and kill. If you think of all that it will be easy to get out and do something to help compassionate politicians.

Hare protection work

Here in our part of East Anglia we are blessed with still having a high population of hares. At night, returning home from kickboxing classes, I often see numerous hares on the flat grass fields, caught in my car headlights. We even sometimes have hares coming into our garden to feed which is lovely. They are delightful, harmless creatures who often have to endure very harsh conditions. We had snow on our nearby fields for over two weeks at the start of January with temperatures down to minus eight degrees centigrade. Hares live only above ground and whilst they may occasionally seek shelter in woods or scrub they by and large live out in the open. They were plentiful right across the UK but changes in farming practice and widespread oppression by man in the form of shooting, hunting and coursing has severely reduced their numbers. It was not just the organised coursing clubs that did the damage. There was also widespread coursing and killing of hares by characters with lurchers. This became the media catchphrase of “illegal coursing” when done without permission to go on the land.

Since the Hunting Act 2004 the police who always were enthusiastic at clamping down on illegal coursing have been even more successful at suppressing the brutal pastime. Before the Hunting Act anyone who saw coursers on the fields was never sure whether or not the coursers had permission to be there so hesitated to call the police. In effect the illegal coursers were able to hide behind the legal coursing fraternity. But with the Hunting Act making all coursing illegal it became easy for the public to recognise illegal coursing and call the police. After the Act there was an attempt by some former coursing enthusiasts to confuse the situation by staging what they described as “field trials” in which coursing greyhounds were muzzled and encouraged to course hares but as you will have read in our previous bulletins that was soon sorted out once our side were able to film the proceedings and take the evidence to court. Now the only hope for coursing enthusiasts is to get David Cameron elected to government and the Hunting Act repealed.

Dealing with illegal coursers is like trying to hold muggers and thieves at bay. It is a never ending struggle. Just as we can see the hares in our area and we love them so do the coursers know they are there and they love coursing and killing them. It is the classic conflict of compassion versus callousness. The recent snow brought the hares some respite from those who seek to play with them with dogs. Coursing dogs cannot run in snow and cannot turn at speed on frozen ground. But when the snow melted the coursers returned. Sue and I were heading towards Southwold recently on investigation work when on an open single-track country lane we encountered a slow moving estate car heading towards us. We waited in the passing space and when the car reached us it was clear that the driver was obsessed with viewing something across the open fields. I looked across and saw a chap walking amongst a distant crop. We drove on then turned about and passed the estate car, now parked in the passing space. Suspecting illegal coursing we noted his registration number and then drove round for a better sight of his colleague on the fields. Several hares were running about on the open grassland. There was no sign of any coursing dog, greyhound or lurcher. Had we seen that we would have called the police immediately on a 999 and stopped to film what was taking place. In the absence of any coursing dogs I went to talk to the local farmer. He told me that they were plagued by coursers before Christmas and it would be no surprise to him if they were back in the area. Previously he and his sons had had to see off a gang of coursers which is no mean feat. He told me how coursers would often reconnoitre the area beforehand. Sending an advance party to drive about the fields looking for hares and perhaps also testing the reaction of the local community. It is all well and good having “Neighbourhood Watch” and “Farm Watch” signs dotted about our countryside but how in practice do rural communities react to strange cars driving slowly about their lanes? If the coursers get hassle they move on. If they are left alone they return to play with the hares.

This is very much an ongoing situation. I immediately posted on Facebook that the coursers are back with a vengeance and we need to protect our hares and I quickly received numerous messages of support. So what can we all do? Here are some tips?

Get to know your local farmers and their attitudes to such matters. Offer to help patrol the roads around their fields. Remember these are usually working farmers who cannot just down tools to chase after mobs of hare coursers.

Get to know your local police and ascertain their attitudes to such wildlife crime. Containing hare coursing is about the one area of the Hunting Act that the police will enforce with relish. To be brutally honest this is not, and never has been, because the police loathe the cruelty that the coursers inflict on the hares. Legal coursing was every bit as cruel, if not more cruel. No, the police don't like illegal coursers because they don't like the sort of people they are. They see them as gypsies, unemployed louts, wasters and criminals to boot who will steal and break things as well as course hares.

Patrol to protect the hares yourself. Take the number plates of suspicious cars. Coursers will often operate in the following fashion: there will be four men in an estate car with two dogs in the back. They will drive about the fields until they see a hare on the land. The three passengers will get out with one or more dog and slip the dog(s) against the hare. The driver will then aim to drive ahead of the course that is taking place and be in a position to pick up his mates and their dog(s). If he is stopped and challenged by anyone he will just say something like they stopped to relieve themselves and a dog got away, ran off and they are trying to catch it. But the intelligence, the number plate, will give them away. But that is by no means definitive proof. In the past I have given a number plate to the police and then been told that it tracks back to a travellers camp and that the man who is the registered owner and keeper allows others to drive it and cannot remember who was driving it on the day in question!

Politically we just need to make people aware that if any future government is foolish enough to repeal rather than strengthen the Hunting Act illegal hare coursing will become all but impossible to control and mayhem, havoc and cruelty will return to the farmlands of East Anglia. According to the latest reports reaching me the very survival of the brown hare in Britain could be threatened.

Fishing

We are currently taking a close interest in this pastime. We are interested for several reasons. Firstly for the obvious cruelty caused to fish by an entertainment activity. Secondly we are concerned at the environmental damage caused by fishing through discarded weights, hooks and fishing line etc. Thirdly we are concerned at the wider impact of fishing through the overstocking of small ponds and the threats by fishing interests to natural predators such as cormorants and otters. If supporters and readers have any relevant information or tip-offs please let me know. Many thanks.

Campaigning on the Streets

Two of our three children are now at university (and our third is happily embarked on a career). Our son Shaun is studying International Politics and our daughter Lucy-Ann is studying Media and Journalism. Last autumn Shaun was out in the USA as an exchange student and whilst there he took the opportunity to visit Toronto. There he was able to see, photograph and support a street demonstration highlighting the cruelty of the fur trade.

More recently Lucy-Ann was in London to support and photograph a Sea Shepherd anti-whaling demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy on Friday 15^th January. It is marvellous how the wheel can turn a full circle. I too can recall attending and supporting demonstrations both against the fur trade, in the form of the killing of seal pups by Canada, and against the whaling industry. That was in the 1970s. The shame of it all is that the cruelty has continued virtually unabated and our children now have to fight the same battles that we fought but were unable to win. Must our children and their children in turn really also have to struggle to contain the likes of say hare coursing?

Wildlife friendly gardening books by ACIG supporter
Joe Hashman has for many years supported the work of the ACIG and for even more years he has consistently put himself in harms way in the animal welfare cause. Time and again, often in the face of extreme threats, he has been in the right place at the right time to gather the video proof of the cruelty inflicted on our wildlife by the bloodsports brigade. Last year he gave evidence in court in the successful prosecution of two notorious hare coursers. As well as being a passionate and determined campaigner and an all round decent bloke he is also a celebrated author (writing as 'Dirty Nails') of wildlife friendly gardening books. With his latest book just published he now has three books to his name. The ACIG is pleased to recommend these books to you. They are:
How to Grow Your Own Food
A week-by-week guide to wildlife friendly fruit and vegetable gardening by Dirty Nails
First published 2007 Price £10.99 plus £2 postage and packing
A Vegetable Gardener's Year
A practical & personal journey through changing seasons on a Dorset allotment by Dirty Nails
First published 2008 Price £12.99 plus £2 postage and packing
On the Plot with 'Dirty Nails'
A practical guide to fruit and vegetable gardening - in words and pictures by Joe Hashman
First published 2009 Price £12.99 plus £2 postage and packing