phospholipid bilayer of a cell. An anonymous informant writing in The Humanitarian in August 1908, for instance, questioned the unwomanly conduct of the ladies in the field: The conduct of the women is beyond me to describe. [23] Master of Crowhurst Otter Hounds, Picture Post, 22nd July 1939, Volume 4, Number 3. He did however come to the conclusion that their conduct had been reprehensible.Footnote Now, what nonsense this is!Footnote Douglas Macdonald Hastings, Hunting the Otter, Picture Post, 22nd July 1939, 5256, p. 52. 31. Following its publication, the book received widespread publicity when Williamson was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in June 1928. Ernest Bell, Cat Worrying, 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. Bell-Irving, David Jardine, Tally-Ho: Fifty Years of Sporting Reminiscences (Dumfries, 1920), p. 120 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 A prime example was when an article appeared in the 22nd July 1905 edition of Madame, a magazine aimed at wealthy women, proudly informing readers about the first lady Master of Otter Hounds, Mrs Mildred Cheesman. 57 The Master of the Crowhurst Otter Hounds surveys a line of Country. 20 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; 39 This act of individual defiance was, however, soon silenced by the laughter of the unreceptive audience. Inside there is a six page pictorial feature, Hunting the Otter, written by Douglas Macdonald Hastings. . 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 One of the first men of influence to join the Humanitarian League was Colonel William Lisle Blenkinsopp Coulson (18411911). The large bold title above the image read, Women being blooded at an otter-hunt.Footnote Salt, Henry, Seventy Years Among Savages (London, 1921) p. 141 23. 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. Although in political terms women gained full equality of suffrage in 1928,Footnote Render date: 2023-05-01T08:20:46.153Z Although this demonstration was by all accounts quiet and orderly, the encounter did produce a rather interesting spectacle. In August 1938 the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports gained permission to reprint the chapter in leaflet form. 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. 68 Osman, Colin, Man, Felix Hans (18931985), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 For almost 40 years, the otters in southeast Alaska scrapped by. 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. 31 A sanctuary was created in Amchitka Island, whose sea otter population grew to outstrip its supply of prey. 66. It argued that if it were necessary, otters should be cleanly killed, i.e. "useRatesEcommerce": false 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. 62. Bates wanted to reclaim the otter from this minority for the British public. 16, Otter hunting was compared unfavourable to other types of hunting. Total loading time: 0 And as to the women, they evidently have no sense of shame, or pity, for the torture these poor little creatures undergo.Footnote The sport became increasingly popular in the late nineteenth century and the Edwardian period. Sea urchins are voracious grazers of kelp. Cruel Sports magazine readily employed this strategy. Ibid., p. 20. 88 Johnston's opinion of the otter and motivation for its protection were also quite unusual. . This reversal shows that the campaigning did have an impact, albeit a small one, on the public perception of the activity. It appears to be more about human behaviour than animal suffering. For Johnston, otter hunters were not cruel they were simply misinformed. 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 Ernest Bell, Cat Worrying by Sportsmen, The Animals Friend (1905), 1823. 84. 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. 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. 70 26 90. 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 Large numbers of sea cows occurred in the Commander Islands at the time of their discovery by Europeans in 1741. Salt, Henry, Humanitarianism (London, 1891), p. 3 In 2010 a painting normally considered too upsetting for modern tastes which while impressive was also undeniably gruesome was displayed at an exhibition of British sporting art at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle. Their aim, to enforce the principle that it is iniquitous to inflict avoidable suffering on any sentient being, was tied to both the criminal law and prison system, and the prevention of cruelty to animals. And even we English whose behaviour in the country is notoriously crazy must have an excuse for wading through rivers in grey bowler hats, blue jackets and white flannel breeches. Cameron, L. C. R., Rod, Pole and Perch: Angling and Otter-hunting Sketches (London, 1928), p. 52 64. Yet although Johnston was not directly involved, his argument brought into prominence the campaign for the otter. 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. This approval generated considerable adverse reactions and increased press coverage. 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. 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. 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 In these terms the iconic image of Varndell could be seen as positively publicising the face of otter hunting. . After retiring from the army he devoted much of his time to lecturing in schools across the country about the fair treatment of animals. This allowed broader questions to be raised by the publisher and campaigner Ernest Bell (18511933). Call a professional pest removal expert See He wanted society to step back and reconsider the moral distinction between wild and domestic animals. . Colonies were discovered around Alaska's Aleutian Islands and Prince William Sound in the 1930s. 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. } But model men would find pleasure neither in torturing, nor annihilating any of them.Footnote 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. And as a relatively inexpensive sport, such social changes meant otter hunting had become a less appealing target for them. 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. The first publication solely concerned with exposing the cruelties of otter hunting was Joseph Collinson's 1911 The Hunted Otter, a twenty-four page booklet in Ernest Bell's A. 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. 5 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 The painting was commissioned as a commemorative portrait of his pack of otter hounds by Lord Aberdeen (17841860), then foreign secretary and later to become prime minister. The sequence of events is as follows: (1) The Master of an Otter Hunt Plans His Attack; (2) The Followers are Arriving; (3) Hounds are Released from the Van; (4) The Crowhurst Pack Awaits the Signal to Move Off; (5) The Hunt Begins; (6) The Pack Moves Off to Find the Otter's Drag; (7) A Huntsman and His Pole; (8) Cutting off a Corner; (9.) 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. Johnston condemned otter hunting and urged the government to give the mammal legal protection in his 1903 publication British Mammals. As otters were removed during the hunting years, there was a large decrease in the catches of fish species from the eelgrass habitats. 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. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1906 Annual Report (1906), p. 127. Sydney Barthropp, Master of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds, died fighting in France in 1914, which led to their disbandment soon after. feel thankful that the Masters of the various packs of otter hounds do not share this opinion.Footnote are not infrequently killed, even in the summer months, and then, of course, the whole litter is destroyed. Again this article was accompanied with a striking photograph of several ladies holding banners (Figure 3). We appeal to the chivalry of English men and women to make these so-called sports impossible.Footnote To reinforce this point Bates goes on to outline the enjoyable aspects of the sport. In other words, if the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did not introduce a bill, then the Humanitarian League would do so. 8 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 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. Demonstration at a Meet of the Bucks Otter Hounds, Cruel Sports, June 1931. This desire had different implications for different sorts of people. . Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, August 1939, 58. Leeds Women Protest at an Otter Hunt, Cruel Sports, August 1935. Posted on September 22, 2019. . 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? The men then lit some cotton waste, smoked out the otter, and pelted it with stones. . 17 22. Sport and the Otter, Cruel Sports, June 1929, 812; this had first appeared in The Western Mail, 1st June 1929. In 1901 he also contributed a four page paper, The Otter Worry, to the League's sixty-three page pamphlet British Blood Sports: Let us go out and kill something. He met his future wife Ida Hibbert at an otter hunt, and proposed to her at a hunt ball. . 81. The sea otter population has rebounded to nearly three thousand individuals Demonstration at a Meet of the Bucks Otter Hounds. River otters love fish, frogs, crayfishes, crabs, and other aquatic invertebrate John Mackenzie points out that Landseer did not decry human participation in the raw cruelty of the natural world. 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 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. 63. Coleridge, Bell and others argued in articles in Animals Friend magazine and The Humanitarian that this reversal was unconstitutional and illogical.Footnote The evidence seems clear enough.Footnote 57. President Stephen Coleridge, his successor Lady Cory and several other members did the same. 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 H. E. Bates, Otters and Men (1938), p. 1. The main institutional differences were in their ideals and methods. 63 Kean, Hilda, The Smooth Cool Men of Science: The Feminist and Socialist Response to Vivisection, History Workshop Journal (1995), 40:1, 1638 A selection of letters was then published under the title, Should Otters Be Hunted? The first letter, by Reverend Joseph Stratton, argued that men were judged in relation to their treatment of animals. 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. In 1923 he diverted his attention to blood sports. 11 Google Scholar. 86. On rare occasions women were singled out for criticism during this period: Why the educated, rich, or the uneducated for the matter of that, have nothing better of more edifying to do with their time is beyond one's comprehension.
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