as otters were removed during the hunting years

The principles of this League echoed those of its predecessor, that it was iniquitous to inflict suffering, either directly or indirectly, upon sentient animals for the purpose of sport.Footnote See inside.. 49. His argument in the Hunted Otter was driven by quotations from thirty published sources. View all Google Scholar citations The incident was widely reported and horrified the public. Ernest Bell, Cat Worrying, pp. Vivisection, the slaughter of animals for food, the fur and feather fashion trade, and blood sports were all targeted.Footnote 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. Otter hunting was a minor field sport in Britain but in the early years of the twentieth century a lively campaign to ban it was orchestrated by several individuals and anti-hunting societies. 23 WebThe otters were then protected by the international fur seal treaty, which banned sea otter hunting. 15, Although this document only had a small readership it proved to be the earliest written condemnation of the sport from an organisation. They were then handed leaflets. 85 In the same year Amos organised the Leeds Rodeo Protest Committee which successfully scotched several attempts to import and establish rodeo in England. An incredibly vile sport: Campaigns against Otter School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, Keele University, ST5 5BG, UKD.Allen@keele.ac.uk, School of Geography, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UKCharles.Watkins@nottingham.ac.uk, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956793315000175, The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands, A Delightful Sport with peculiar claims: The Specificities of Otterhunting, 18501939, Our Hunting Fathers: Field Sports in England after 1850, Wild Things: Nature and the Social Imagination, Otters as Symbols in the British Environmental Discourse, Records of the Culmstock Otterhounds, c. 17901957, Tally-Ho: Fifty Years of Sporting Reminiscences, The Smooth Cool Men of Science: The Feminist and Socialist Response to Vivisection, Feathered Women and Persecuted Birds: The Struggle against the Plumage Trade, c. 18601922, Some inhuman wretch: Animal Maiming and the Ambivalent Relationship between Rural Workers and Animals, The Hounds of Spring. Still, if I am ruled out of order I will resume my seat. Instead as Collinson argued, the hunting and worrying of otters while caring for their offspring proclaimed only the insensate cowardice of the men and women concerned.Footnote WebThe otters were then protected by the international fur seal treaty, which banned sea otter hunting. This in a sense gave the League the moral high ground. 40, As a result of the Humanitarian League's campaigning, by 1906 otter hunting had become an issue of public debate. The hunting and killing of female otters during the breeding season was a recurring theme in anti-hunting literature. The group's membership steadily grew from over 300 in 1925, to over 2000 in 1929, and 3000 in 1938. 9. . 50. Coulson later complained that clergy, more generally, did little to criticise otter hunting: Seldom do we hear from the pulpit any protests against acts of cowardice and cruelty that would shame savages. 89. They might be horrified if you suggested that they wished the otter any harm. Each image is accompanied with a caption and a paragraph explaining the scene. The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports also publicised isolated malpractices to strengthen their argument. 60. For Johnston, otter hunters were not cruel they were simply misinformed. Hastings (190982) became a leading war reporter for Picture Post. When Oregon and the federal government removed families from the area more than 150 years ago, Peter Hatch said, sea otters were still present. In the latter, the fox has some chance of escape but in the former the otter's chances of escape are clearly much less. 3 When, however, other members of the Hunt were moved to action by the scandal,Footnote 13. 59. Cruel Sports magazine readily employed this strategy. Bell was sentenced to one month's imprisonment with hard labour and John Church, the Hunt's Whip, received half that sentence. 26 These public demonstrations shed light on the respectability of the animal welfare movement. Having been allowed bail, the pair's charges were later revised on appeal to a five pound fine, on the understanding that Bell gave a donation of one hundred pounds to the North Devon Infirmary. Watkins, Charles, Matless, David and Merchant, Paul, Science, Sport and the Otter, 19451978, in Hoyle, R. W., ed., Our Hunting Fathers: Field Sports in England after 1850 (Lancaster, 2007), pp. young and thoughtful. Otter-hunting is cowardly and unmanly; Otters are hunted by people who should know better; Otter hunting is a relic of barbarism; Otters are hunted in the breeding season which is despicable were just some of the truths blazoned on boards that day. A barrister by profession, Coleridge who hated cruelty in all its formsFootnote 66. 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 The sea otter population has rebounded to nearly three thousand individuals Joseph Collinson argued that a deplorable feature of this sport is that its followers include all sorts and conditions of people: ministers of religion with their wives, young men and young women, sometimes even boys and girls. The History of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds, Rod, Pole and Perch: Angling and Otter-hunting Sketches, Putting Animals into Politics: The Labour Party and Hunting in the First Half of the Twentieth Century, A blow to the men in Pink: The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Opposition to Hunting in the Twentieth Century, Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers, The Otter Speared, Portrait of the Earl of Aberdeen's Otterhounds, or the Otter Hunt, http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing-art-gallery/collections.html. Now, Dr. Estes said, more than 90 percent of those otters are gone. 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 5 74 14. For Bates, much like Henry Salt, the pain and suffering experienced by animals were indistinguishable from those experienced by humans. Although its founder Edward Hulton was a Conservative, the publication was politically left leaning and its editors Stefan Lorent and Tom Hopkinson took an anti-fascist stance. 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. and provided further evidence of the barbarous spirit engendered by indulgence in blood sports.Footnote The Trust recently secured the first ongoing class licence to capture and transport live Eurasian otters trapped in well-fenced fisheries in England. But what matter? The seasonality, setting and pedestrianism of otter hunting appealed to Edwardian sporting and leisure sensibilities. 16, Otter hunting was compared unfavourable to other types of hunting. . Otter hunting presents to him a picturesque scene, with the scarlet-coated, white-breeched men armed with spears, with shaggy hounds, and the landscape set with great marsh marigolds. The cruelty was not disputed and Bell's defence to the charge showed little remorse. 31. The word fun is the binding theme in Bates argument. 64. Alongside the overall decrease of otter hunts and otter hunters was the dramatic reduction of advertised meets and reports in the national and regional press. He was a founder member in 1903 of the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire and an opponent of big game hunting. Bates wanted to reclaim the otter from this minority for the British public. It argued that if it were necessary, otters should be cleanly killed, i.e. Figure 4. and He focussed on several key themes including the hunting of pregnant otters and the demoralising effects of participating in the hunt. The scientist built a tube that was divided by an. 58. 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 interviewed by the Oxford Times, Mrs Chapman explained We went to Islip because we thought we ought to make a special protest against otter-hunting. 29. Resting upon his well-notched otter pole and fully clad in hunting attire, he gazes into the distance. Here he labelled otter hunting as the second cruellest blood sport: With the exception of the hare-hunt men and women possibly never sink so low as they do when they join an Otter-Worry. At night, in company with her other cub, she came to the yard and tried to liberate the little captive, but without success. Reverend H. C. G. Matthew, Coleridge, Stephen William Buchanan (18541936), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). This increase in reintroduction effort would come to be known as one of the most ambitious and extensive carnivore restoration efforts in history. 72 54 22. L. C. R. Cameron, Otters and Otter-Hunting (1908), cited in Collinson, The Hunted Otter, p. 6. The latter formed a pack of Otter Hounds in Llandinam, Wales, bearing his name in 1906. . Six weeks later, on 9th September, the magazine's editor revealed that many readers had taken umbrage with the article, and invited further correspondence on the subject. 60. He declared that Coleridge was entirely out of order in discussing this matter now, adding that he was not speaking of the merits of the subject, but only say it is out of order now. Coleridge replied that: If at your Annual meeting such a motion as that is out of order, then I say this great Society will stultify itself if it does not hear me. 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. Covering the issues which most concerned. She argued that Otter-hunting is an incredibly vile sport, because it is deliberately carried on in the breeding season and was amazed that a larger number of influential people do not feel it their duty to make active protests against these things. According to Coulson those who engaged in the kill became virtually maddened by it.Footnote He thought that the aesthetics of otter hunting could be maintained if public opinion or legislation limited the killing of otters to ten per annum in any one county and then it might be possible to keep up a picturesque sport without unduly lessening the number of otters in our rivers.Footnote 67. The driving force was Henry Amos, who had worked as a government official and been secretary of the Vegetarian Society from 1913. Second, he felt that as he had bought the cats they were his own property and third, he argued that it was less cruel to use a cat than a badger as worrying the latter badly injured the dogs.Footnote He followed the Cheriton Otter Hounds from 1924 and subscribed to Records of the Cheriton Otter Hounds produced by William Rogers, Master, in 1925. Allen, Daniel, A Delightful Sport with peculiar claims: The Specificities of Otterhunting, 18501939, in Hoyle, R. W., ed., Our Hunting Fathers: Field Sports in England after 1850 (Lancaster, 2007), pp. . Sir Edwin Landseer, The Otter Speared, Portrait of the Earl of Aberdeen's Otterhounds, or the Otter Hunt, 1844; Laing Gallery, Newcastle http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing-art-gallery/collections.html. Otherwise inaccessible wild and watery landscapes could also be explored: in otter hunting, the hounds, the invigorating air of the early morning, and the superb beauty of England's valleys and dales constitute the chief attractions. Ibid., p. 20. 35 Diana Donald argues, however, that the resulting canvas, six and a half feet high, had no precedent in British sporting art in the way it combined archaic pageantry and brutal actuality with the hunter twisting the spear so the otter does not immediately fall to the hounds. WebWhich of the following critical values should the scientist use for the chi-square analysis of the data? 62 The History of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds (Powys, 1988), p. 24.Google Scholar. 11 H. E. Bates, Otters and Men (1938), p. 1. 62. 80 Ernest Bell, The Barnstaple Cat-Worrying Case, The Animals Friend (1906), 43. 41 31 The image in question fronted the issue released on 22nd July 1939. From the late 1890s Coulson had also launched a prolific letter writing campaign against otter hunting in local, regional and national newspapers. 6 Johnston condemned otter hunting and urged the government to give the mammal legal protection in his 1903 publication British Mammals. Raymond, Graham 32. His letter writing campaign against rabbit-coursing on Sundays in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924. For almost 40 years, the otters in southeast Alaska scrapped by. It may be outlawed, yet in 1977 one single New York dealer smuggled, amongst many other furs, the skins of 15,470 neotropical and 271 giant otters into the country (Eltringham 1984). When urchin populations spiked in response, the reefs held their ground. 1 70 4. In his view, otters were more visible than fish and therefore their lives were more valuable: the time has come when active steps should be taken to promote the preservation of the otter, a creature far more beautiful, wonderful and obvious than any fish.Footnote Allen, Daniel, Otter (London, 2010)Google Scholar; It depicts Varndell as a solitary figure deep in thought. Offering close proximity and participatory practices of seeing (gazing) and doing (the stickle), any member of an otter hunt could participate in infamous scenes. He provides a typical instance from a Monthly Review (June 1906) article by J. C. Tregarthen: An otter's cub was captured and confined in the stableyard of a house near a river where the mother had been hunted during the day. Glorying over being blooded at an Otter Hunt, Cruel Sports, 1928 p. 85. Otter reintroductions were common during this time. 53, To show that this practice was not a thing of the past, Collinson then lifted more recent examples from the May 1906 Animals Friend: An otter, after being worried for four hours, gave birth to two cubs, and was afterwards hunted for two hours more before she was killed. The hypocrisy of clergy preaching high moral standards and Christian virtues yet killing for fun was regularly exploited by members of the Humanitarian League. 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. 43. Ernest Bell, Cat Worrying by Sportsmen, The Animals Friend (1905), 1823. 81. Bobcats and otters or their pelts must be delivered to an agent of the Conservation Department for registration or tagging before selling, transferring, tanning or mounting by April 10. Hale, Matthew Ruskin's critique of the painting did little to diminish the popularity of Landseer's art in the nineteenth century and hunts, hunters and otter hunting increased substantially in popularity, reaching a peak in the Edwardian period.Footnote The otter is impaled on a barbed hunting spear and is about to be flung down for the hounds. and broadly disregarded spearing as one of the blood-thirsty methods used by our forefathers.Footnote Otter hunting involves the harrying of females heavy with young, the destruction of mothers in milk, the lingering starvation of a number of suckling cubs, and a heavy death roll and the the aggregate of animal suffering caused is necessarily great.Footnote 88 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. 2. 20 . A key criticism was of the voyeurism of watching the otter die. In women and children it induced behaviour that was not in keeping with certain ideas about gender and youth. Posted on September 22, 2019. Spurious Sports Sport with an Otter, The Humanitarian, October 1906, 75. 03 March 2016. He wanted society to step back and reconsider the moral distinction between wild and domestic animals. The exposure was made all the more effective by the contradictory responses from the otter hunters involved. 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 order to share these principles with the public, the League adopted a strategy that involved open meetings, lobbying of influential individuals, letter writing campaigns to newspapers and magazines and the production of pamphlets, monthly journals and other scholarly publications.Footnote 63 Which of the following observations would provide the strongest This is not to say that those within the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports subscribed to this notion. The following year, the Fur Seal Treaty was signed and although the Joseph Collinson, The Hunted Otter (1911), p. 19. . (Cheers.) for torturing cats to death, should show the public the lengths to which cowards will go when once they begin to gratify blood-lust.Footnote At dawn she withdrew to the river, where she was again hunted, but after several hours pursuit managed to escape. For many, the behaviour of these dynamic and somewhat bedraggled women, clad in sodden attire, was far from ladylike. Added to this, the physical characteristics of the otter meant that the final worry, much like the preceding pursuit, could be more prolonged and more of a spectacle than in hunts of other animals. Twenty-five years later, Smith and his colleagues conducted two years of monitoring surveys at 1,200 sites across the state to assess how well the population was doing. 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 About Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, July 1928, 85. It also shows that people other than animal welfarists and sportsmen were concerned with the hunted otter. Opponents, on the other hand, were offended by this inclusivity. This pack disbanded in 1919 when he became master of the Hawkstone Otter Hounds. It is pleasant to read that after such heroic conduct on the part of the poor beast, the hunter's heart softened and the whelp restored.Footnote CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henry Salt also argued in the Morning Leader on 31st August 1907, almost two months after the incident, that such scandals as this bludgeoning of a hunted otter and the recent worrying of cats by the master of the Cheriton Otter Hounds were a sign that cruelty in one direction often leads to cruelty in another, and that in such a sport as otter-hunting the line between practice and malpractice is apt to be overlooked.Footnote Sir Harry Johnston, British Mammals (1903), p. 140. By planting a seed of doubt into the minds of readers over the accuracy of hunting reports, it also implied that otter hunters could not be trusted. Otter hunting was a minor field sport in Britain but in the early years of the twentieth century a lively campaign to ban it was orchestrated by several individuals and In August 1938 the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports gained permission to reprint the chapter in leaflet form. See Moreover, otters are not hunted by fishermen, but by people whose notions of fun are to go out and kill something.Footnote 46. Tarka soon became an iconic literary figure, and otter-hunting was made tangible to a new and wide audience.Footnote Has data issue: false Coleridge, Bell and others argued in articles in Animals Friend magazine and The Humanitarian that this reversal was unconstitutional and illogical.Footnote In the case of an organised hunt, the followers deliberately engage in a series of barbaric acts, skilfully camouflaged by all the trappings of an elaborate ritual. There were several large sources of South American otter skins. In these terms the iconic image of Varndell could be seen as positively publicising the face of otter hunting. The following year Bell and his followers formed the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports. 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. After mobilising factual evidence, graphic descriptions and controversial comparisons, Bates concludes his essay bemoaning the seeming insanity of the legal position of hunted animals. 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 15. Unlike the working men who may have regretted the spontaneous event, sportsmen not only celebrated their own form of killing; they had created organisations that expected it to occur on a regular basis. Large hunting efforts were under way with the help of a massive ship in the water. With this in mind Johnston seemed to overlook the behaviour of otter hunters and instead placed blame on anglers: Salmon is produced in such enormous abundance in North America and Norway, and is so very unlikely (owing to its habit of resorting to the sea) to become exterminated in British waters by the otter, that it would be a shame if this remarkable aquatic weasel. Is there no legislation which would enable, say, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to get upon the track of the Workington murderers and make them suffer? Downing, Graham, The Hounds of Spring. They were killed mostly for their fur, which was desirable 51. . The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, Annual Report (London, 1931), 34. Demonstrations at a Meet of the Bucks Otter Hounds, Cruel Sports, June 1931, 51. The fact that otter hunting was singled out suggests that Coleridge felt this particular activity was vulnerable enough to be prohibited. At its centre an exhausted hunter holds an otter aloft over a pack of baying otterhounds. . 37, The first malpractice to be exposed in otter hunting itself was an incident that occurred on the River Tweed on 6th July 1907. This echoed broader concerns for non-human animals. Initially L. C. R. Cameron, author of Otters and Otter-Hunting (1908), was incredulous that the incident could have happened at all while F. G. Aflalo, editor of the Encyclopaedia of Sport, thought the reports demonstrated the ignorance of the critics of hunting.Footnote 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. UKWOT has These kinds of demonstrations continued throughout the 1930s. Which of the following Sea otters were ecologically extirpated from the Northwest Coast of North America by the Pring, Geoffrey, Records of the Culmstock Otterhounds, c. 17901957 (Exeter, 1958), p. 35 4 [23] 19 The committee concluded that the promotion of legislation and especially of controversial legislation, is not desirable at present and should instead be undertaken as far as possible by individuals.Footnote . women too seem frenzied with the desire to kill.Footnote Moore-Colyer, R. J., Feathered Women and Persecuted Birds: The Struggle against the Plumage Trade, c. 18601922, Rural History, 11 (2000), 5773 2. WebAll the otters that are in there might leave to get away from the smell. He argued that if the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did not oppose otter hunting then it is quite certain that some similar Society will do so to the utter shame of our Society here.Footnote . The aesthetic quality of animals was also important to him. When the otter reached temporary sanctuary in a holt twenty men got on to the bank and endeavoured by jumping and other means to force the earth down into the unfortunate animal's hiding place until worn out by fatigue and fright surrounded by men and dogs the otter became as easy prey to its enemies. 10. 79. . The sea otter population has rebounded to nearly three thousand individuals 59. . 77. 61. Bell-Irving, David Jardine, Tally-Ho: Fifty Years of Sporting Reminiscences (Dumfries, 1920), p. 120 56 A fortnight after this event, on 13th May 1931, the second reported demonstration against otter hunting generated a rather more hostile response. Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-knlg2 This was the month when the Barnstaple cat-worrying case was in the public eye. Pain, too, like fun, is a word of many meanings and it is not surprising, perhaps, that for many people the two things are synonymous. Otter hunting is a practice that dates back to the 1700s. CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also The RSPCA and its Objects, The Animal World, July 1906, 154. 20. 68 By the twentieth century most otter hunters spoke of the remote and barbarous days of the spear,Footnote Hunting Otters with firearms was once common in the early twentieth century, but many preferred to trap them. By Zulma Cary. In the Aleutian Islands, a massive and unexpected disappearance of sea otters has occurred since the 1980s. The cause of the decline is not known, although the observed pattern of disappearances is consistent with a rise in orca predation. Sea otters give live birth. Hounds Feather as They Search the River Banks; (10) Followers Take to the Water; (11) This Is the Kill; (12) The Whip Holds Up the Trophy. This opposition to the Bill was surprisingly effective. To stress his dissatisfaction, he targets two features specific to the sport, the prolonged duration of the pursuit and spring and summer hunting: To make it pleasant for otters as well as man, otters are hunted not only for a long time, for seven or eight or ten or eleven hours at a stretch, but in spring. In the Daily Sketch, Mr Harding Matthews, an individual with no declared interest, wrote: Are we to believe that Workington breeds people so utterly spineless as to allow, in public and in broad daylight, the brutal murder of an inoffensive, wild creature? A high proportion of the League were women. Feature Flags: { If the mere presence of women was condemned, then the role they played in, and joy they gained from, the death of the otter was shocking. The idea of the fairer sex taking part in manly or savage amusements was regularly invoked to shock the public.Footnote Captain T. W. Sheppard, Decadence of Otter Hunting, The Field, 20th October 1906, 658. 79. Prior to the maritime fur trade which began in the late eighteenth century, sea otters ranged from Japan, north through the Aleutian Islands and down the Pacific coast of North America to Baja California (Barabash-Nikiforov 1947). of compassion, love, gentleness, and universal benevolence, the Humanitarian League clearly set itself apart from other reform oriented bodies. He agrees that the otter lives on fish, but so also do herons and wild duck and pike and kingfishers and cats and men and women. Perhaps surprisingly, despite four decades of campaigns against the sport, the article does not describe otter hunting as something controversial. 47 Syse, Karen Victoria Lykke, Otters as Symbols in the British Environmental Discourse, Landscape Research, 38 (2013), 54052CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 82 Google Scholar. Promoting the humane principles. [After a pause.] 28. 46 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 shot but they felt that many otters were preserved for hunting, a shameful blot on our civilisation. are not infrequently killed, even in the summer months, and then, of course, the whole litter is destroyed.

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