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SHOOTING GAZETTE - FEBRUARY

Nature has taught us a salutary lesson. Toonies are all too inclined to think that ‘scientific progress’ has conquered Nature. Councils happily build houses on flood plains. Flood plains are Nature’s safety valves. They were provided in places where Nature could run off surplus water. Human greed has caused us to build houses on these convenient stretches. When rivers overflow, the wretched inhabitants of these places have their beloved homes flooded and suffer accordingly. This is Nature teaching us a lesson. The recent horrifying Tsunami, which has killed an unknown number of people and ruined the lives and livelihoods of many more, is merely Nature writ huge and terrible. Yet minor human devastations happen every day – the car crash that wipes out an entire family, the farmer who gets caught up in a feed mixer – are just as devastating in a small scale as the Sri Lankan fishing village that gets wiped out by a giant wall of water. The lesson that every countryman knows instinctively is that you cannot best Nature. You have to learn to live with Her and work alongside of Her; otherwise She will always get you in the end.

Harold Macmillan was once asked what the greatest test in politics was. He answered – ‘Events, Dear Boy, events’. Hunting seems to have been a beneficiary of ‘Events’. I do not know what passed during the telephone call between on of the Head Sheds of the Countryside Alliance and Blair during his flight to Israel, but I suspect that the man concerned has great influence in Israel. He may have been pointed out to Blair that if he did not play straight (not a thing that comes naturally to him) over Hunting, He might just come up against ‘pratt falls’ of an unsuspected and unsurpassable nature during his mission. Whatever was said, it does seem to have bought Hunting and Country Sports a bit of time. The one thing that you can be certain of with time is that it will contain ‘Events, Dear Boy, events’. Those ‘events’ may not be favourable to Blair and his rotten and corrupt government. Let us all hope that this will be the case.

Northumberland, where I live, is one of the last strongholds of the Red Squirrel. This redoubt is under threat. The first threat is from the reintroduction of the Goshawk. No one will admit to responsibility for this totally illegal act, but all the locals know how it was done and by whom. I have, on occasion, addressed the question, in print, both to Forest Enterprise and to the RSPB. At the time of writing, the answer has been a deafening silence. I have nothing personal against Goshawks. They are beautiful birds. It is unfortunate that they are beautiful and highly efficient hunters of the Red Squirrel. I was talking to a Keeper who has two Goshawk nests on his beat. He told me that he found the remains of 13 Red Squirrels under one nest and 11 under the other. Goshawks are spreading like mange. The Red Squirrel population simply cannot stand this degree of persecution. A few years ago, when I went stalking, I could expect to see a large number of these charming little animals and watch their acrobatic skills with huge enjoyment. Now, I hardly see one and when I do, it is a matter of remark and unexpected pleasure. It is said that Nature abhors a vacuum. It is also said that the Tree Rats (which is all Grey Squirrels are) have not yet started colonising Northumberland. The received wisdom is that they cannot cross the Tweed, nor the Tyne. I fear that this is not true. The Captain and I were on our way to a hunt the other day and we saw two (separate) Greys. They were well south of the Tweed and, whilst still north of the Scottish Border, they were within a mile or two of Northumberland. I fear that it is only a matter of time before they colonise us.

I equate the fate of the indigenous Red with the fate of the indigenous English Countryman. Slowly but surely we indigenes are being driven from our native haunts and being replaced by foreign (as in urban) invaders. Under a system called ‘Red Alert’ we are encouraged to fight the Grey tide with poison, traps and guns. Not for one moment would I suggest that we use such methods on our urban invaders, but there have been moments… I once had the cross-hairs nicely settled on a doe, when there was furious barking and I was pounced on by two boisterous Dalmatians. It hardly needs saying that my carefully stalked doe dematerialised. I had speech with the lady owner of the Dalmatians who explained that it was unthinkable to have Dalmatians on leads as they were ‘carriage dogs’ and needed to run free underneath the carriage.

I asked her to show me her carriage.

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