Total loading time: 0 This reversal shows that the campaigning did have an impact, albeit a small one, on the public perception of the activity. 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 driving force was Henry Amos, who had worked as a government official and been secretary of the Vegetarian Society from 1913. Otter reintroductions were common during this time. In these terms, if fishermen, as the only people with a genuine grievance against otters, did not feel the need to hunt and kill them on the grounds of revenge, then the animal was not a pest. Which of the following observations would provide the strongest To help do this he compares otter hunting with fox hunting. These public demonstrations shed light on the respectability of the animal welfare movement. 81. . 5. 74 The candid words of Reverend E. W. L. Davies in his 1886 chapter on The Otter and his Ways helped to reinforce this point: Bitch-otters yielding milk. 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. 66. The Picture Post styles otter hunting as just another peculiar pastime the notoriously crazy English enjoy in the countryside. The hypocrisy of clergy preaching high moral standards and Christian virtues yet killing for fun was regularly exploited by members of the Humanitarian League. 32 They might be horrified if you suggested that they wished the otter any harm. . A key criticism was of the voyeurism of watching the otter die. 65. 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 President Stephen Coleridge, his successor Lady Cory and several other members did the same. Salt, Henry, Seventy Years Among Savages (London, 1921) p. 141 22. 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 Here we explore the plausibility of this mechanism, using information on sea otters, kelp forests, and the recent extinction of Steller's sea cows from the Commander Islands. These Cuties Could Help Save Oregons Kelp Forests 61. 79. 30. 15. Walter Cheesman and Mildred Cheesman, Diaries of the Crowhurst Otter Hounds, 1904, Unpublished, East Sussex Record Office, Reference AMS5788/3/1, p. 3. 31. 63. 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. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. [22] In 1957 the treaty was finally re-drafted to account for the population changes in the various locations of sea otters. About the Otter, Cruel Sports, June 1928, 73. The incident was widely reported and horrified the public. of the hunting fraternity. Render date: 2023-05-01T08:20:46.153Z As otters were removed during the hunting years, there About Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, July 1928, 85. 03 March 2016. The National Anti-Vivisection Society was founded by Frances Power Cobbe in 1875; the Plumage League was established in 1889 and became the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1904. Otter hunters were of course proud of this fact; it was one of the many peculiarities that set it apart from other field sports. 45. The Daily Mail, for instance, received several telegrams from masters of otter hounds opposing Coleridge's criticism and justifying their sport. Can sea otters save the world Covering the issues which most concerned. 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 The RSPCA and its Objects, The Animal World, July 1906, 154. The following year Bell and his followers formed the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports. After introducing her pack, the Crowhurst Otter Hounds, the article listed the women who actively enjoyed the sport: Of the invariably large and influential following we may mention Mrs Mantell, Mrs Killogg-Jenkins, and Miss Woodruffe, Mrs Trimmer and Miss and Mrs J. Awbrey.Footnote Moreover, the intimacy of otter hunting meant that not only are they present at these infamous scenes, but, like the huntsmen, are worked up to the wildest pitch of excitement and moreover join in the final worry and the performance of the obsequies, when the spoils of the chase are distributed.Footnote The 1911 pamphlet attempted to shed light on the overall death roll of otter hunting. 1847Google Scholar; The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands (Edinburgh, 2005)Google Scholar. By Zulma Cary. Glorying over being blooded at an Otter Hunt, http://www.henrysalt.co.uk/friends/colonel-coulson. Unlike other blood sports, the main excitement in otter hunting was seen to derive from the involvement in the visceral spectacle of the kill. The men then lit some cotton waste, smoked out the otter, and pelted it with stones. The first to second the motion was Ernest Bell who pointed out that otter hunting was just as unsportsmanlike as shooting birds from traps. View all Google Scholar citations Google Scholar. The social image being constructed is of a group of people who are not just morally right, but are more decent than the hunters, who are by contrast portrayed as disreputable, aggressive and shameful. It was the only organisation that called for the legal protection of otters at the beginning of the twentieth century.Footnote Ernest Bell, The Barnstaple Cat-Worrying Case, The Animals Friend (1906), 43. 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. 7. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s however verbal disapproval was replaced with more subtle visual rebukes. 36, The third, by Lady Florence Dixie, took the opportunity to publicise the Humanitarian League's work on blood sports. 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. 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. Williamson dedicated Tarka the Otter to William Rogers. phospholipid bilayer of a cell. 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. Where Have All the Sea Otters Gone The latter is probably more in keeping with the prosaic style of the pamphlet. In August 1935 Cruel Sports reported that a group of women from the Leeds branch had protested against the Kendal and District Otter Hounds in July. 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. These snaps, which had been taken by otter hunters, were lifted from local newspapers then republished with evocative captions. Ibid., p. 20. 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. The National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports, which was formed by an individual who had originally been part of those more radical elements, preferred a gradual approach to abolition and identified educating public opinion as its immediate objective. This paper examines the arguments and methods used in different anti-otter hunting campaigns 19001939 by organisations such as the Humanitarian League, the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports and the National Association for the Abolition of Cruel Sports. . It has many meanings and perhaps I misconstrue it? Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler: Or the Contemplative Man's Recreation (1653), Chapter 2. Coulson thought hare hunting was crueller than otter hunting because the hare was timid defenceless and nervous, whereas the otter was a gallant little animal which died after a long hard-fought battle.Footnote socially, much of society still subscribed to the Victorian notion of womanhood. 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. 79. During the 82nd Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on 21st May, Stephen Coleridge tapped into this public feeling, and unexpectedly proposed that the committee should prepare a bill to make otter hunting illegal. 9, In this paper we consider the ways campaigns against otter hunting were carried out in the period 1900 to 1939. 60. 44 It also shows just how much the mere thought of otter hunting could unsettle an individual. He argued that if the government cared for the preservation of beauty in England, the otter would long ago have been placed on the protected list, and would not have been subjected to the undiscriminating attacks of sportsmen.Footnote Instead, it tells the reader that the otter is hunted partly because it is tradition to do so; partly because he provides excellent sport, and partly because it is still necessary to regulate his kind.Footnote Hunting is a good excuse for a hard day's exercise. This in a sense gave the League the moral high ground. Now, Dr. Estes said, more than 90 percent of those otters are gone. Tichelar, Michael, Putting Animals into Politics: The Labour Party and Hunting in the First Half of the Twentieth Century, Rural History, 17 (2006), 21334, 219CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also 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. 61 How to Get Rid of Otters in a Pond - Wildlife Animal Control 86. 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. 29. 89. 49. 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. 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. The hunting and killing of female otters during the breeding season was a recurring theme in anti-hunting literature. 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. 70. See 62. shot but they felt that many otters were preserved for hunting, a shameful blot on our civilisation. 47. And since I have never seen an otter, except behind the glass of a painted case, who am I to say that the otter does not enjoy the fun of having its belly bloodily ripped? The belief that any sentient being deserved protection from ill-treatment generated a comprehensive list of animal related activities marked for legislative change. Although this demonstration was by all accounts quiet and orderly, the encounter did produce a rather interesting spectacle. Ernest Bell noted in the Animals Friend journal soon after the prosecution that it was quite right that the press should express horror at such barbarity but questioned whether the deliberate worrying of otters for amusement was any less cruel or reprehensible than the worrying of cats.Footnote Google Scholar. He also pointed out that Geoffrey Hill of Hawkstone had killed 544 otters between 1870 and 1884, and that William Collier of Culmstock had also accounted for 144 between 1879 and 1884. 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. Ernest Bell, The Barnstaple Cat-Worrying Case, The Animals Friend (1906), 43. Smith, Virginia, Bell, Ernest (18511933), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [online]Google Scholar. 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? The following year, the Fur Seal Treaty was signed and although the 47 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. 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 (Cheers.) Opponents, on the other hand, were offended by this inclusivity. 76, There is a real sense that women should have had the emotional authority to know better.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 There were several large sources of South American otter skins. 20 This echoed broader concerns for non-human animals. From the late 1890s Coulson had also launched a prolific letter writing campaign against otter hunting in local, regional and national newspapers. The painting, Sir Edwin Landseer's The Otter Speared, Portrait of the Earl of Aberdeen's Otterhounds, or the Otter Hunt had been associated with controversy since it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844 (Figure 1). Sea otter conservation - Wikipedia Daily Mail, 23rd May 1906, cited in CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 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 33 50. 87. 64. In these terms the iconic image of Varndell could be seen as positively publicising the face of otter hunting. The regular otter hunter deliberately indulges in cruelty without the saving grace of feeling shame on the contrary, the returning cars and local tap rooms ring with the complacent boastings of the lords and ladies of creation.Footnote The war had a dramatic effect on otter hunting and campaigns against the sport, although individual hunts dealt with the hostilities in their own ways. Following its publication, the book received widespread publicity when Williamson was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in June 1928. 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. Sea otters, in turn, are equally voracious predators of sea urchins. Spearing was no longer permitted in the popular modern form. This pack disbanded in 1919 when he became master of the Hawkstone Otter Hounds. He was also a member of the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports and an unwavering opponent of otter hunting. Douglas Macdonald Hastings, Hunting the Otter, Picture Post, 22nd July 1939, 5256, p. 52. sea otters, urchins and starfish make Osman, Colin, Man, Felix Hans (18931985), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 19 The Spirit of Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, August 1939, 62. 3 Google Scholar. 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. Again this article was accompanied with a striking photograph of several ladies holding banners (Figure 3). 62 67 He sat on the governing bodies of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Canine Defence League, the Cat's Protection League, the Pit-Ponies Protection Society, and the Animals Friend Society.Footnote 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 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 31 As otters were removed during the hunting years, there was a large decrease in the catches of fish species from the eelgrass habitats. Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, August 1939, 58. 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. . Rather than defend its sentient or sporting qualities, he was much more concerned with its aesthetic role in the landscape. 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. 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. 23. AP Bio Final Questions Flashcards | Quizlet Allen, Daniel, The Hunted Otter in Britain, 18301939, in Middleton, K. and Pooley, S., eds, Wild Things: Nature and the Social Imagination (Cambridge, 2013)Google Scholar; The object of this society was to create a sound public opinion on the destruction of wild animals throughout the British Empire, especially Africa, and establish game reserves.Footnote Answered: Crab Sea Slug Algae on Eelgrass | bartleby Destruction: The Maritime Fur Trade - Elakha Alliance otter rescue plan that worked too This opposition to the Bill was surprisingly effective. 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. Cameron, L. C. R., Rod, Pole and Perch: Angling and Otter-hunting Sketches (London, 1928), p. 52 56 with exception of the three spurious sports of carted-stag hunting, rabbit coursing and shooting pigeons from traps.Footnote By the twentieth century most otter hunters spoke of the remote and barbarous days of the spear,Footnote 2956Google Scholar; Consequently everyone can watch, and most do watch, the end and people collect from far and near and watch in cold blood for minutes together the frantic death-agony of the brave little animal who has never done injury to anyone assembled. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1906 Annual Report (1906), p. 127. For Johnston the otter was not a special animal, it was one of many beasts, birds, and reptiles which potentially added to the future happiness of the world. In 1939 another iconic image came out on the front cover of the Picture Post (Figure 5). The seasonality, setting and pedestrianism of otter hunting appealed to Edwardian sporting and leisure sensibilities. 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. L. C. R. Cameron, Otters and Otter-Hunting (1908), cited in Collinson, The Hunted Otter, p. 6. Colonel W. Lisle B. Coulson, The Otter Worry, in Henry Salt, ed., British Blood Sports: Let us go out and kill something (1901), pp. Figure 3. Figure 1. 20. The chairman eventually agreed to put the resolution to the meeting and it was carried with acclamation. . Still, if I am ruled out of order I will resume my seat. After mobilising factual evidence, graphic descriptions and controversial comparisons, Bates concludes his essay bemoaning the seeming insanity of the legal position of hunted animals. 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. hasContentIssue false, Copyright Cambridge University Press 2016. It was not until July 1928 that the age was lowered to twenty-one. This is clearly a splendid time. 39. 58. Although in political terms women gained full equality of suffrage in 1928,Footnote The main institutional differences were in their ideals and methods. 29 The exposure was made all the more effective by the contradictory responses from the otter hunters involved. 41 88 4. At its centre an exhausted hunter holds an otter aloft over a pack of baying otterhounds.