43. At night, in company with her other cub, she came to the yard and tried to liberate the little captive, but without success. Google Scholar. 56 In the latter, the fox has some chance of escape but in the former the otter's chances of escape are clearly much less. Master of Crowhurst Otter Hounds, Picture Post, 22nd July 1939, Volume 4, Number 3. Mr Collier's Otter Hounds were the last to abandon the spear in 1884, as his field did not care to see so gallant a beast suffer such an end.Footnote the quarry itself is quite a secondary consideration.Footnote 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. Unlike the working men who may have regretted the spontaneous event, sportsmen not only celebrated their own form of killing; they had created organisations that expected it to occur on a regular basis. 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. Sport and the Otter, Cruel Sports, June 1929, 812; this had first appeared in The Western Mail, 1st June 1929. . Throughout the 1920s and 1930s however verbal disapproval was replaced with more subtle visual rebukes. WebA scientist designed an experiment to test an. The letter proposed that drag hunting provides all the thrill of the chase without a living victim, and we earnestly request you to consider its adoption in preference to hunting live creatures.Footnote 27 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. A key criticism was of the voyeurism of watching the otter die. 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. Alongside the overall decrease of otter hunts and otter hunters was the dramatic reduction of advertised meets and reports in the national and regional press. . 23 . 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 "useRatesEcommerce": false I do not find this in the least hard to believe.Footnote In February 1918 the Representation of the People Act gave all women over the age of thirty the right to vote. The otter is as good an excuse as the next one; and, after all, the beast usually escapes.Footnote 12 70. 77. 24 On 4th April 1928, for instance, several daily newspapers reported that an otter had been stoned to death by fifty working men in Workington. Although this demonstration was by all accounts quiet and orderly, the encounter did produce a rather interesting spectacle. Men, women and children could all actively participate together in this sport. Henry Salt also argued in the Morning Leader on 31st August 1907, almost two months after the incident, that such scandals as this bludgeoning of a hunted otter and the recent worrying of cats by the master of the Cheriton Otter Hounds were a sign that cruelty in one direction often leads to cruelty in another, and that in such a sport as otter-hunting the line between practice and malpractice is apt to be overlooked.Footnote 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. . In fact, this member felt that the latter was worse than the former: In the one case a crowd of men became infected with a sudden attack of blood lust, and were carried away by the excitement of the moment to the temporary exclusion of all feelings of humanity. Feature Flags: { 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. The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands (Edinburgh, 2005)Google Scholar. socially, much of society still subscribed to the Victorian notion of womanhood. 55. Google Scholar. President Stephen Coleridge, his successor Lady Cory and several other members did the same. A fortnight after this event, on 13th May 1931, the second reported demonstration against otter hunting generated a rather more hostile response. Varndell had mastered the Crowhurst Otter Hounds since 1905, and had missed only four days hunting in thirty-five years.Footnote There is no danger, no risk, absolutely no excuse for this form of baiting except the insensate one of a lust for blood.Footnote 88. In the minds of campaigners it not only looked ridiculous, it was unacceptable. Alongside this broad criticism, the incident was also used to expose the behaviour of sportsmen in general. See inside.. 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. Darts and arrows were present at the start of hunting. About Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, July 1928, 85. Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, August 1939, 58. . . The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, Annual Report (London, 1931), 34. 20. The painting is currently in store at the Laing Gallery, Newcastle http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing-art-gallery/collections.html. Sea otters were hunted to near extinction during the maritime fur trade of the 1700s and 1800s. When urchin populations spiked in response, the reefs held their ground. "During the fur trade, Clathromorphum persisted through centuries where urchins presumably abounded," Rasher said. "However, the situation has drastically changed this time around. H. E. Bates, Otters and Men (1938), p. 1. As otters were removed during the hunting years, there was a large decrease in the catches of fish species from the eelgrass habitats. artificial membrane that mimics the. For Johnston, otter hunters were not cruel they were simply misinformed. 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. Now, Dr. Estes said, more than 90 percent of those otters are gone. In just a few decades, this bustling civilization has withered into a ghost town. You can travel down 10 miles of coastline and never see an animal, he said. The loss is more than cosmetic. In the Aleutians delicate seascape, otters hold the entire ecosystem together. Yet although Johnston was not directly involved, his argument brought into prominence the campaign for the otter. 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. . This desire had different implications for different sorts of people. 48 Inside there is a six page pictorial feature, Hunting the Otter, written by Douglas Macdonald Hastings. and Although Collinson made a point of exposing these figures, he did not comment on them in any way. In the same year Amos organised the Leeds Rodeo Protest Committee which successfully scotched several attempts to import and establish rodeo in England. 5. 81. 37, The first malpractice to be exposed in otter hunting itself was an incident that occurred on the River Tweed on 6th July 1907. 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 11. 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 It argued that if it were necessary, otters should be cleanly killed, i.e. He did however come to the conclusion that their conduct had been reprehensible.Footnote 76. Hastings (190982) became a leading war reporter for Picture Post. Smith, Virginia, Bell, Ernest (18511933), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [online]Google Scholar. The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports also publicised isolated malpractices to strengthen their argument. 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. He reported that around 450 otters were killed every year which meant that in my short life of thirty years. 9, In this paper we consider the ways campaigns against otter hunting were carried out in the period 1900 to 1939. Glorying over being blooded at an Otter Hunt, Cruel Sports, 1928 p. 85. Leeds Women Protest at an Otter Hunt, Cruel Sports, August 1935. Resting upon his well-notched otter pole and fully clad in hunting attire, he gazes into the distance. Hale, Matthew In these terms the iconic image of Varndell could be seen as positively publicising the face of otter hunting. Spearing was no longer permitted in the popular modern form. And as a relatively inexpensive sport, such social changes meant otter hunting had become a less appealing target for them. 03 March 2016. A subsection in the Hunted Otter (1911) entitled Hunted for Seven Hours described the lengthy pursuit of a female otter by the Culmstock Otter Hounds in 1910. According to Coulson those who engaged in the kill became virtually maddened by it.Footnote 1847Google Scholar; Williamson dedicated Tarka the Otter to William Rogers. The fact that otter hunting was singled out suggests that Coleridge felt this particular activity was vulnerable enough to be prohibited. The RSPCA and its Objects, The Animal World, July 1906, 154. WebAll the otters that are in there might leave to get away from the smell. WebThe feeding habits of otters vary greatly depending on species, location, and time of year or season. 35 . Moreover, otters are not hunted by fishermen, but by people whose notions of fun are to go out and kill something.Footnote Which of the following observations would provide the strongest 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. It also shows that people other than animal welfarists and sportsmen were concerned with the hunted otter. At its centre an exhausted hunter holds an otter aloft over a pack of baying otterhounds. UKWOT has 7. This opposition to the Bill was surprisingly effective. 3. shot but they felt that many otters were preserved for hunting, a shameful blot on our civilisation. 89 This is clearly a splendid time. 78. Large numbers of sea cows occurred in the Commander Islands at the time of their discovery by Europeans in 1741. . 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 These snaps, which had been taken by otter hunters, were lifted from local newspapers then republished with evocative captions. 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. The national profile of otter hunting was raised in July 1905 when the press reported an incident that became known as the Barnstaple cat-worrying case. After being chased by the crowd, the female otter took refuge in some brickwork under a bridge. Cameron, L. C. R., Rod, Pole and Perch: Angling and Otter-hunting Sketches (London, 1928), p. 52 Salt edited the two Humanitarian League journals: Humanity, later renamed The Humanitarian (18951919) and The Humane Review (19001910). 56. 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. The group's membership steadily grew from over 300 in 1925, to over 2000 in 1929, and 3000 in 1938. 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. In 1931 Ernest Bell, co-founder of the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, resigned in protest at Henry Amos's continual criticism of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This was the month when the Barnstaple cat-worrying case was in the public eye. After only two months, the pressure on the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals proved too much and in July 1906 Animal World announced that the committee was not prepared to take any action on the motion moved by Stephen Coleridge with regard to otter hunting. something like twelve thousand otters have been killed in England for the purpose of fun. 69 [22] In 1957 the treaty was finally re-drafted to account for the population changes in the various locations of sea otters. The image in question fronted the issue released on 22nd July 1939. The most important organisation calling for the protection of otters in the Edwardian period was the Humanitarian League, founded in 1891 by Henry Salt, who published his pamphlet Humanitarianism in the same year. The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports based itself on the radical elements of the Humanitarian League. 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 86. This is likely to be a ban by local landowners. 42. WebThe otters were then protected by the international fur seal treaty, which banned sea otter hunting. Sea otters, in turn, are equally voracious predators of sea urchins. Ernest Bell, Cat Worrying by Sportsmen, The Animals Friend (1905), 1823. 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.) 1823. 31 Sea otter conservation began in the early 20th century, when the sea otter was nearly extinct due to large-scale commercial hunting. The sea otter was once abundant in a wide arc across the North Pacific ocean, from northern Japan to Alaska to Mexico. 26 When the otter reached temporary sanctuary in a holt twenty men got on to the bank and endeavoured by jumping and other means to force the earth down into the unfortunate animal's hiding place until worn out by fatigue and fright surrounded by men and dogs the otter became as easy prey to its enemies. Hopkinson, T., ed., Picture Post 193850 (London, 1970), p. 8 After retiring from the army he devoted much of his time to lecturing in schools across the country about the fair treatment of animals. Sir Harry Johnston, British Mammals (1903), p. 140. It may be outlawed, yet in 1977 one single New York dealer smuggled, amongst many other furs, the skins of 15,470 neotropical and 271 giant otters into the country (Eltringham 1984). 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 It was the only organisation that called for the legal protection of otters at the beginning of the twentieth century.Footnote 21 This is not to say that those within the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports subscribed to this notion. 68 My object is only to insure that this Institution shall fulfil the great purpose for which it was founded.Footnote 76, There is a real sense that women should have had the emotional authority to know better.Footnote The Guardian, 9th May 2010. 7 4. 65, The League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports was the first organisation to engage directly with otter hunters at otter hunts and the first ever protest against otter hunting appears to have taken place in 1931. . It is quite clear from the applause with which my remarks have been received that the subscribers of the Society do wish to hear me. 79. 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. The Trust recently secured the first ongoing class licence to capture and transport live Eurasian otters trapped in well-fenced fisheries in England. To help do this he compares otter hunting with fox hunting. 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. The sea otter population has rebounded to nearly three thousand individuals 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. 59. WebWhich of the following critical values should the scientist use for the chi-square analysis of the data? Bell-Irving, David Jardine, Tally-Ho: Fifty Years of Sporting Reminiscences (Dumfries, 1920), p. 120 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 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 Otter-hunting is cowardly and unmanly; Otters are hunted by people who should know better; Otter hunting is a relic of barbarism; Otters are hunted in the breeding season which is despicable were just some of the truths blazoned on boards that day. 16586Google Scholar; 60. 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