Joseph Collinson, The Hunted Otter (1911), p. 19. . 16586Google Scholar; The fact that otter hunting was singled out suggests that Coleridge felt this particular activity was vulnerable enough to be prohibited. John Mackenzie points out that Landseer did not decry human participation in the raw cruelty of the natural world. This idea is reinforced by the fact that the two members of the audience who stood to offer their support were both members of the Humanitarian League. to gratify the anglers craze.Footnote He reported that around 450 otters were killed every year which meant that in my short life of thirty years. 13. Ibid., p. 20. The 1911 pamphlet attempted to shed light on the overall death roll of otter hunting. 50. Although Coleridge's speech was welcomed with loud cheers and rapturous applause, the chairman of the committee was far from impressed by the impromptu inclusion of the subject. 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 3 10 His argument in the Hunted Otter was driven by quotations from thirty published sources. Even if she is prevented from doing so, she will hang about the place where they are, and perhaps be killed wet when the cubs, too, will perish.Footnote Google Scholar. See inside.. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s however verbal disapproval was replaced with more subtle visual rebukes. 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 15, Although this document only had a small readership it proved to be the earliest written condemnation of the sport from an organisation. From The Field for 18th June 1910 came a report that: Too many bitches are killed at this time of the year (June), the dog otters making themselves very scarce. Rogers, William, Records of the Cheriton Otter Hounds (Taunton, 1925)Google Scholar. Otter The Otter Worry, The Humanitarian, September 1907, 164. The otter is impaled on a barbed hunting spear and is about to be flung down for the hounds. On Tuesday 28th April, a small group of members from the Oxford Branch assembled in Islip to demonstrate against the Buckinghamshire Otter Hounds (Figure 2). 73. Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-knlg2 When, however, other members of the Hunt were moved to action by the scandal,Footnote 70. Finally the author of the original article, J. C. Bristow-Noble, responded resentfully that On behalf of some of these daughters of Eve, I have now to state that it is of their opinion that the quarry, as is frequently the case, should always be allowed to escape. Large numbers of sea cows occurred in the Commander Islands at the time of their discovery by Europeans in 1741. This is not to say that those within the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports subscribed to this notion. Coleridge won the audience at the meeting over to his case. The hypocrisy of clergy preaching high moral standards and Christian virtues yet killing for fun was regularly exploited by members of the Humanitarian League. 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. Kean, Hilda, The Smooth Cool Men of Science: The Feminist and Socialist Response to Vivisection, History Workshop Journal (1995), 40:1, 1638 Google Scholar. Bell argued that it offered an insightful glimpse into the mind of the sporting man,Footnote 76, There is a real sense that women should have had the emotional authority to know better.Footnote L. C. R. Cameron, Otters and Otter-Hunting (1908), cited in Collinson, The Hunted Otter, p. 6. CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cruel Sports magazine readily employed this strategy. . Although in the book he admits this was partly due to the animal's nocturnal behaviour, in the shortened leaflet the omission of the introductory paragraph made otter hunting the prime reason for his misfortune. 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 "useRatesEcommerce": false His letter writing campaign against rabbit-coursing on Sundays in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924. Google Scholar. 7 A part of this pamphlet, which included this quotation, was reprinted in Cruel Sports magazine in 1929. With no utilitarian reason for killing, the hunted otter was simply something killed for fun. 78. 70 I do not find this in the least hard to believe.Footnote Wright, Catherine feel thankful that the Masters of the various packs of otter hounds do not share this opinion.Footnote Oliver, Roland, Johnston, Sir Henry Hamilton (18581927), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [online]Google Scholar. Coulson, Otter Worrying A Protest, The Humanitarian, August 1908, 61. This is clearly a splendid time. He uses heavy irony to get his point across: Fun is a curious word. In The Times on 13th June 1928 Williamson was described as the finest and most intimate living interpreter of the drama of wildlife. At night, in company with her other cub, she came to the yard and tried to liberate the little captive, but without success. The large bold title above the image read, Women being blooded at an otter-hunt.Footnote We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. 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. The National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports sought to enlist the support of well-known individuals, including the journalist and author H. E. Bates (19051974) who became a mainstream country writer. Covering the issues which most concerned. 46 The small caption reads: OTTER-HUNTING. If anyone interpreted this anecdote with a smidgen of sentimentality, as a narrative of a protective mother rewarded for her heroic conduct with the release of her whelp, the harsher realities of such freedom were instantly put into perspective with a quotation from L. C. R. Cameron: Resentment at disturbance of the normal conditions impels her to leave her couch in which she has laid her cubs; the promptings of the maternal instinct compel her to return forthwith to her offspring. At least 23 million Amazonian animals, including the otters, were hunted for their hides from 1904 to 1969. F. Pamphlet Series. 1847Google Scholar; In these terms, this exceptional incident was absorbed into the broader campaign against blood sports. . CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also . The Picture Post styles otter hunting as just another peculiar pastime the notoriously crazy English enjoy in the countryside. The crucial connection, he discovered, was sea urchins. 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. artificial membrane that mimics the. 11:59 Exit Sea otters are native to the western coast 67. The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands (Edinburgh, 2005)Google Scholar. 29. The main institutional differences were in their ideals and methods. [23] 1 72 . Yet although Johnston was not directly involved, his argument brought into prominence the campaign for the otter. The Spirit of Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, August 1939, 62. Sydney Barthropp, Master of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds, died fighting in France in 1914, which led to their disbandment soon after. AP Bio Practice Exam 1 Flashcards | Quizlet 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. 32. Cruel Sports illustrated this incident with a photograph headed Burning the Truth! According to the League's Report for 1931, the demonstration at Colchester resulted in a local ban being placed on the hounds.Footnote The group's membership steadily grew from over 300 in 1925, to over 2000 in 1929, and 3000 in 1938. And as a relatively inexpensive sport, such social changes meant otter hunting had become a less appealing target for them. It is amazing to us that men and women can find pleasure in hunting living creatures for hours, putting them to considerable distress and pain, and then watching their exhausted bodies being torn to pieces by hounds. He presented the case for his unauthorised but friendly amendment at the Egyptian Hall, Mansion House. Otters today are faced with habitat loss and food scarcity, apart from killing due to Members of the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports were also outraged by this murderous behaviour and equally critical of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but they had a slightly different response to the event. 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. This fun was one of the reasons why it is so difficult for me, and for that matter anybody else, to get a sight of an otter.Footnote and Resting upon his well-notched otter pole and fully clad in hunting attire, he gazes into the distance. 58. 39. It is a brutal, demoralising amusement. Here, the criticism of otter hunting seems to be directed more at the spectator's reaction to the prolonged death-agony, than the actual experience which the animal is going through. First, he insisted that cats had been used, as he could not always get hold of a badger. 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. Brought up as a sportsman and still a keen angler, this well-known Northumberland country gentleman and Justice of the Peace was a staunch and fearless friend of animals.Footnote Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, August 1939, 58. As this practice was almost exclusivelyFootnote . . 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. 23. otter rescue plan that worked too In these terms the iconic image of Varndell could be seen as positively publicising the face of otter hunting. 42. The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports publicised its views in much the same way as the Humanitarian League and from January 1927 they started producing a monthly journal Cruel Sports.Footnote Call a professional pest removal expert They were killed mostly for their fur, which was desirable 56 . Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. 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 But Bristow-Noble emphasised that we should. In addition to this justification, any suggestion of cruelty is light-heartedly dismissed: It is improbable that most of the people who go otter hunting worry much about the humanities or the natural law of the thing. . 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. The Daily Mail, for instance, received several telegrams from masters of otter hounds opposing Coleridge's criticism and justifying their sport. It may be that he saw otter hunting as a useful device for testing both the political elasticity of the Society and the penetrative influence of the Humanitarian League. A modest proposal for hunting sea otters | Popular Science 68 In 1928, it showed a cheerful young woman glorying over being blooded at an otter-hunt (Figure 4).Footnote 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. Observing sea otters and kelp beds on Amchitka both onshore and during scuba dives led Estes to question the links between them. These kinds of demonstrations continued throughout the 1930s. The letter argued that no reasonable excuse can be found for such conduct, misnamed sport which was morally wrong and barbaric. 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. and provided further evidence of the barbarous spirit engendered by indulgence in blood sports.Footnote During 1970-71, 93 sea otters were released in Oregon. A key criticism was of the voyeurism of watching the otter die. It also shows just how much the mere thought of otter hunting could unsettle an individual. By Zulma Cary. Can sea otters save the world Otter hunting is a practice that dates back to the 1700s. The Guardian reported that the grisly content of the painting was the reason why it was taken off permanent display by its owners the Laing Gallery in Newcastle.Footnote To reinforce this point Bates goes on to outline the enjoyable aspects of the sport. Staged at Colchester's North Railway Station, on this occasion members of the Colchester Working Group were the chief agitators and the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds the agitated. They were then handed leaflets. 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 Captain T. W. Sheppard, Decadence of Otter Hunting, The Field, 20th October 1906, 658. A true man would kill fierce animals with as little pain as possible, while those he destroys for food, or raiment, he will destroy mercifully. Total loading time: 0 63 He had seen a Master of a pack last summer throw a man into the river for striking at an otter with a walking stick.Footnote Destruction: The Maritime Fur Trade - Elakha Alliance The Master of the Wye Valley Otter Hounds, on the other hand, styled himself as a utilitarian, hunting through the war not for sport, but in order to keep down the head of otters in the interests of the fisheries.Footnote It has many meanings and perhaps I misconstrue it? 2017. Salt edited the two Humanitarian League journals: Humanity, later renamed The Humanitarian (18951919) and The Humane Review (19001910). Unlike other blood sports, the main excitement in otter hunting was seen to derive from the involvement in the visceral spectacle of the kill. Here Bates presents a very personal and very committed attack on otter hunting in a style of writing quite unlike his own. River otters love fish, frogs, crayfishes, crabs, and other aquatic invertebrate In this case, which was brought by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Master of the Cheriton Otter Hounds, Mr Walter Lorraine Bell, and three of its members were found guilty of charges relating to cruelty to cats. shot but they felt that many otters were preserved for hunting, a shameful blot on our civilisation. 89. Leeds Women Protest at an Otter Hunt, Cruel Sports, August 1935. Figure 5. 03 March 2016. Large hunting efforts were under way with the help of a massive ship in the water. Bates begins by considering the main excuse for killing otters, the supposed need to reduce predation on fish.
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