Animal Aid: Wildlife

WILDLIFE

Wildlife

Animal Aid has long been concerned about the growing tendency to scapegoat various animal species for the environmental vices and excesses of human beings.

Some species are being targeted because they are deemed to interfere with modern agricultural or 'game' bird production systems; others, because they are regarded as urban ‘pests’ or health risks.

The prerequisite for any wholesale attempt at species destruction (or ‘control') is to demonise the animal in question. This is invariably undertaken by exaggerating or simply inventing the negative impact the target species has on other, more favoured species, or on the livelihood and physical well-being of people.

Animal Aid argues that we must face up to our own shortcomings and take constructive action that remedies the damage. Blaming animals is both morally obnoxious and self-defeating. It is literally a dead-end to imagine that ecological harmony can be restored through the barrel of a gun or through the use of body-crushing traps, snares and poisons.

Grey Squirrels

The grey squirrel is a figure of hatred among certain groups, notably those with shooting or forestry interests, and certain ‘conservationists’ who believe that the mass killing of greys is justifiable in their quest to boost the number of red squirrels.

Ironically, the charges currently laid against grey squirrels - that they damage trees and eat birds’ eggs - were once used as justifications to kill hundreds of thousands of red squirrels. But fashions have changed, and now protecting the once-loathed red squirrel is another reason given for killing the grey.

Ruddy Duck

The Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs - Defra - is attempting to wipe out the UK population of these beautiful birds because some are said to fly to Spain and mate with the endangered (through hunting) white headed duck. The result is an ‘impure’ hybrid, which won’t be tolerated by top table conservation groups and Defra.