An open letter to Hannah Blythyn

[jimbo1984]

Well until NRW decided to buckle under rather than stick with the evidence, BASC didn't know if they had a campaign to mount. Originally NRW said they would follow the scientific evidence and not ban shooting, so up to that point all was well. BASC frequently annoy me but blaming them for stuff that isn't their fault really doesn't help. If we keep fighting each other the Hannah Blythins of this world just have an open goal to shoot at.

David.

Aye and if we keep continually paying into bascs coffers while they do nothing that'll help will it ?

 

[FISH BOY]

Bottom line, everything is about money these days.

Its not just the game keepers and farmers that will be effected by this but the whole rural community.

Country pursuits people spend money in shops, hotels, pub etc with those employees then spending their wages locally keeping the local economy going. With those valuable funds dissapearing its a slippery slope.

Its been done on a whim, so once the impact is felt, sooner or later I believe it will be reversed as otherwise sadly it will cause Wales considerable economic problems.

 

[The Singing Stalker]

Ohhhhh here we go. Another Basc bashing thread. Doesn't take long does it?

 

[jimbo1984]

Ohhhhh here we go. Another Basc bashing thread. Doesn't take long does it?

Oooooh here we go someone turning a blind eye to bascs constant shafting of the sport ! ..... doesn't take long does it !

 

[Miki]

Ohhhhh here we go. Another Basc bashing thread. Doesn't take long does it?

Not at all, they have oganised a lot of 'Game Tasting' dinners/events around the country and have spent a lot of time researching the venues (mainly large houses and halls on extensive estates) and in choosing the wine. They have several dates right into 2019. There is likely a 'team' of people employed finding places that the common man ordinarily wouldn't have access too. I imagine there are probably several lengthy and laborious visits undertaken to define the event, to perfect, each one exquisitely different. Apparently one doesn't have to wear tweed, which is frightfully forgiving don't you think ?
I wonder how much the insurance is in case some commoner stains the tufted chesterfield .... or (god forbid) breaks the chinoiserie vase ?

 

[B&W FOX]

Strange how BASC has leapt into action when facing a shooting ban on public land in Wales..............Oh wait a minute isn't that where the BASC HQ is ....That would effect a lot of the salaried staff days out in the field.
But hey don't worry about the medical fees being implemented on members in other parts of the country, and all the related posts on this forum about them, as long as the staff at BASC still get their free ...sorry slip of the finger...paid shoot days.

Sorry for being such a cynic it must be an age thing.

 

[jimmy milnes]

Oooooh here we go someone turning a blind eye to bascs constant shafting of the sport ! ..... doesn't take long does it !

Which association are you with and what have they done against it or the medical fees issue ?
Not saying all associations couldn't do more on many of the topics that get mentioned on here but it always seems to be the same one getting a kicking.
Regards
J

 

[nun_hunter]

Aye and if we keep continually paying into bascs coffers while they do nothing that'll help will it ?

You're not a member of BASC so why care what they do or don't do? I'm not a member of the Knitting Society and as such do t care what they get up to and don't berate their members for being members or the people in charge for choosing to hold their AGM in a church hall renowned for particularly good eccles cakes.

Along with everyone on this site we all know that the Pope is Catholic, bears schitt in the woods and you have a major issue with BASC. You don't have to bring it up on every legal based thread to remind us all.

 

[Kalahari]

This might interest a few people.


Heavy price to pay for loss in wildlife: Our letter to The Times - Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust

David.

 

[sy247]

A very well written and informative letter.

 

[VSS]

A very well written and informative letter.

Too long though.
Lots of superfluous waffle. For maximum impact, it needs to be distilled down to one page of hard hitting text, subdivided into bite sized paragraphs.
All the facts and arguments are there, but lost in the padding. I doubt that the recipient will read the whole thing.

 

[User00009]

VSS,
you are quite right. The important content is lost in the noise!! When I received my email from BASC my first reaction, (albeit wrong) was t9 think 8s only on public owned land, and In Wales, so what. In my view it’s the thin edge of the wedge if passed unchallenged. We have met and I hope mouse is excelling in her woodland management studies!!!

Rifle shot

 

[Irish Bob]

An open letter to Hannah Blythyn


Oct 3, 2018


In July, Natural Resources Wales received a letter from environment minister Hannah Blythyn AM stating that Welsh Government does not support pheasant shooting, the breeding of gamebirds, or the birds being kept in holding pens, on the Welsh Government Estate. The letter referred to “ethical issues”.

As part of BASC’s campaign to challenge the subsequent decision to ban pheasant shooting on public land, council member Ian Coghill has written to the minister to challenge the “ethical” basis of her intervention.




Dear Hannah,


You may not be entirely surprised that your view, that pheasant shooting, something which is widely accepted as a normal part of rural life over much of Wales, is unethical and immoral, is not universally popular with a large section of the Welsh electorate, especially but not entirely in rural constituencies.


A problem encountered by people who attack shooting is that there is a wealth of evidence that properly conducted game shooting and wildfowling have a significant positive impact on both conservation and the rural economy.


It has been repeatedly demonstrated, not only that land managed for shooting has greater biodiversity and higher conservation value, but perhaps even more striking, that without the techniques pioneered and used in shoot management, biodiversity in the wider landscape can be compromised and the survival of some important species may even be in doubt.


Numerous surveys have demonstrated the importance of properly conducted shooting within the rural economy with an inflow of funds in the region of £2 billion per annum, much of it into rural communities surviving in extremely challenging circumstances. To this must be added the unquantified positive cultural and community impacts resulting from what, in many rural areas, is a key focus of local social activity.


Faced with these inconvenient facts, those who attack shooting increasingly seek to simply ignore them and instead claim that stopping shooting is a moral and ethical necessity. They claim that enjoying an activity which involves killing of any sort is ethically repugnant and immoral. This clearly condemnatory position is extended to include those who allow such activities to take place. These are arguments which are intended to have the maximum political impact, an impact so great that those with power will use it to infringe the long-standing rights of a socially responsible minority. As they have apparently influenced your decision to implicitly criticise the chosen way of life of thousands of Welsh citizens, they are worth considering in detail.


To have any validity, morals must be universal and absolute. The moral precept, ‘thou shall not steal’, applies to everyone and all things. Thus, a moral code which proscribes my freedom on the basis that I should not enjoy an activity which involves killing animals, should, to be valid, apply to all activities which involve killing and which give people pleasure. It should also apply equally to all people.


The list of enjoyable activities which involve the death of animals is a long one, eating meat and keeping carnivorous pets being two of the most obvious.


People who want to criticise my chosen way of life, from what they see as their position on high moral ground, understandably object when their own morality is called into question on the same basis that they wish to apply to others. They claim that eating parts of the body of a month-old chicken is not the same. That there is a moral distinction between getting pleasure from eating a chicken killed by someone else and that derived from shooting and eating a pheasant oneself.


Morally, this is obviously nonsense. You can’t outsource moral responsibility. Try telling the judge that you didn’t murder someone, you only paid a person to do the murder and see how you get on.


That said, whilst there is no moral distinction, there are indeed practical ones. When we kill our own food, we can make sure that it is done as humanely as possible; and when it is taken from the wild we can make certain that its harvest is sustainable and that it has lived a natural life. Obviously, when you employ others to do the killing on your behalf, whilst you are still entirely morally responsible for the deaths involved, you can do nothing but hope that the process is sustainable and humane and, in many cases, would have to be an incurable optimist to believe that the life experience of your enjoyable dinner even vaguely approximated to nature.


Interestingly, many, probably most, of the abolitionists who pester politicians will in private agree entirely with the argument I have just briefly set out. They, and the organisations they represent, will have accepted the ‘Declaration of Animal Rights’, which states that ‘All sentient creatures have the right to life, liberty and natural enjoyment’. This obviously precludes not just eating animals, but most forms of livestock farming and pet keeping. They may agree with me in private, but they will be at pains not to do so in public. They have made an entirely rational strategic decision to pick off the outlying targets first, the minority, little-understood activities, that people will think can be sacrificed for a quiet life.


They are also adept at confusing practical issues of humanity with moral issues and rights. The moral question is clearly, ‘Is it acceptable for humans to enjoy activities which involve the killing of animals’? If the answer is ‘no’, then we should stop all those activities. It would hardly be a morally sustainable position to stop those I take part in whilst keeping those that suit you. If the answer is ‘yes’, then other questions arise about how we can ensure the highest practicable levels of humanity, sustainability and naturalness. But these are practical considerations which should be based on science and practicality.


Obviously, some vegans and fruitarians can argue from a position which is at least not obviously hypocritical but that does not necessarily make them right or give them the right to sit in judgement on those people who live differently. The mere fact that someone makes a personal decision to abstain from an activity, does not make those who do not do so, wrong. The existence of teetotallers with a profoundly held view that drinking alcohol is immoral, does not make those of us who choose to drink immoral. It merely shows that different people hold different views and choose to live different lives, which is the most important characteristic of a free, pluralist society.


What should matter to most people, who do get enjoyment, in whatever form, from activities which involve the killing of sentient creatures are the practical questions of whether the animal’s life was as natural as possible, whether its death was as humane as possible and whether the whole process is sustainable. When shooting and angling are tested in this way they are found to be superior to most systems which generate culinary pleasure for those who do not kill their own food.


You only need to compare the lives and deaths of farmed salmon with wild ones, or supermarket chicken with pheasants to see immediately that there is no contest.


The process of releasing pheasants into the wild begins when they are six weeks old and put into extensive open topped pens in woodland. When they are acclimatised sufficiently to function as a wild bred bird, which takes a week or two, they fly from the protection of the release pen and live what is, to all intents and purposes, a natural life. Only around 30% will ever be shot and they will die swiftly whilst taking natural avoidance behaviour. The ones that are not shot will either be subject to natural predation or live out their full lives in the wild, and may well breed, thus completing a life cycle which is entirely natural apart from the first few weeks when they were under the care of the game farmer and gamekeeper.


The supermarket chicken hatched on the same day as the pheasant will have been eaten by the time the young pheasant has been released. Its five-week life will have been as far removed from the virtually natural existence of the pheasant as it is possible to contrive. It will have been killed by putting it in a crate, driving a lorry full of crates to an abattoir, hanging the bird upside down, electrocuting it and then cutting its throat. If it is particularly unlucky the abattoir may, for religious or cultural reasons, skip the electrocution. As far as I have been able to ascertain you consider all of this entirely ethical and morally acceptable.


It is an understanding of these contrasts in life and death that lies at the root of one of the most problematic issues in the countryside. To a large part of the rural population, shooting game or catching trout or salmon for the pot is, like corn harvest or sending lambs to market, a normal, natural part of life. They are accustomed to people in towns and cities having no knowledge of their lives and problems. Why should they? But what is increasingly occurring is the attempted imposition of the views and opinions of people from outside their communities on their chosen way of life. This would be intolerable, possibly illegal, with any other minority. It is particularly galling when those who are attacking an activity are operating from a position which is manifestly hypocritical.


What often makes it worse is that when challenged the critics say that they are not attacking the individuals and communities involved but the activity itself. This can only imply that those involved are too stupid to see the error of their ways without the help of their critics, but it also relies on the nonsensical idea that committing immoral acts does not make you immoral.


If you claim that shooting game and wildfowl is immoral, you cannot escape the inference that you are also claiming that the thousands of people involved are themselves either immoral or at best too stupid to understand what they are doing. As the activity is far more humane, natural and sustainable than the process which enables more than 60 million British citizens to enjoy the tender meat of 700 million 34-day-old chickens every year, do not be surprised if those who are criticised take it badly.


Yours,


Ian Coghill BASC council member

Excellent letter. I think you will get a reply although it is very unlikely to join issue with the points you make. To do so would take some time and quite a bit of brain power, I do not believe the recipient will expend the former or possesses the latter.

Good response though. I am tempted to write a two liner adopting your points.

 

[VSS]

VSS . We have met

Give me a clue....

I hope mouse is excelling in her woodland management studies!!!

Yes, she's getting along fine thanks. You can read a bit about her stalking here:
Birthday muntjac

Hopefully there will be another write up to follow this, as she also had a successful trip to the Scottish Borders for a roe buck.

 

[Kalahari]

I heard about the roe buck. (She rather kindly told me about it, telling me that the 'scope was still working) She must make you both proud.

David.

 

[Pedro]

Excellent letter. Although I also feel it might have been even better if it was more condensed. But, as with all politicians, we won't be able to alter her views as it's politicians who dictate our views. They think.

I expect that there might be a reply, probably a bland acknowledgement from her secretary (assuming she has one).

I expect a pretty large proportion of her constituency are, directly or indirectly engaged in shooting activities and would hope that come election time, her views will be seen not to coincide with them.