Why Otters Are Endangered? WebThe otters were then protected by the international fur seal treaty, which banned sea otter hunting. 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 killing of baby cubs must needs go on, though a grief and pain to all concerned in their ultimate destruction.Footnote 40, As a result of the Humanitarian League's campaigning, by 1906 otter hunting had become an issue of public debate. Google Scholar. 55. 29 Osman, Colin, Man, Felix Hans (18931985), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 The Hawkstone Otter Hounds disbanded in 1914, putting down most of their hounds. Glorying over being blooded at an Otter Hunt, http://www.henrysalt.co.uk/friends/colonel-coulson. Hastings (190982) became a leading war reporter for Picture Post. Griffin, Carl J. Ruskin's critique of the painting did little to diminish the popularity of Landseer's art in the nineteenth century and hunts, hunters and otter hunting increased substantially in popularity, reaching a peak in the Edwardian period.Footnote 19 Added to this, the physical characteristics of the otter meant that the final worry, much like the preceding pursuit, could be more prolonged and more of a spectacle than in hunts of other animals. Figure 1. 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. 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 13. At night, in company with her other cub, she came to the yard and tried to liberate the little captive, but without success. 87. Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler: Or the Contemplative Man's Recreation (1653), Chapter 2. 69 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. 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. 24 This act of individual defiance was, however, soon silenced by the laughter of the unreceptive audience. How a social lifestyle helped drive a river otter species to Google Scholar. 49 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. 64. This indiscriminate killing of females and cubs was shown to be by no means isolated. The belief that any sentient being deserved protection from ill-treatment generated a comprehensive list of animal related activities marked for legislative change. Which of the following observations would provide the strongest The Humanitarian League's strategy was that whenever an article mentioning otter hunting appeared in a newspaper or magazine, League members would bombard that publication with letters of protest. 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 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). 79. Large numbers of sea cows occurred in the Commander Islands at the time of their discovery by Europeans in 1741. This approval generated considerable adverse reactions and increased press coverage. Drawing his facts from The Field of 8th October 1910, Collinson explained that the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds had recorded a total of twenty-two otters, the Border Counties accounted for twenty-five, and the Hawkstone finished with forty. hasContentIssue false, Copyright Cambridge University Press 2016. It argued that if it were necessary, otters should be cleanly killed, i.e. . This is clearly a splendid time. . 30 By the mid-1960s, Amchitka Island was being used a site for nuclear testing, which eventually killed many sea otters in the area. When, however, other members of the Hunt were moved to action by the scandal,Footnote CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 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. The otter hunters involved had been using cats in a specially constructed wooden tunnel to train their young terriers to bolt otters. 25. The painting is currently in store at the Laing Gallery, Newcastle http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing-art-gallery/collections.html. These snaps, which had been taken by otter hunters, were lifted from local newspapers then republished with evocative captions. 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. CrossRefGoogle Scholar. First, he insisted that cats had been used, as he could not always get hold of a badger. Swamp Otters 4 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. Destruction: The Maritime Fur Trade - Elakha Alliance He wanted society to step back and reconsider the moral distinction between wild and domestic animals. 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. 15, Although this document only had a small readership it proved to be the earliest written condemnation of the sport from an organisation. . Should Otters be Hunted?, Madame, 9th September 1905, 515, cited in Cheesman and Cheesman, Diaries of the Crowhurst Otter Hounds, p. 44. The Guardian, 9th May 2010. 39 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. Hopkinson, T., ed., Picture Post 193850 (London, 1970), p. 8 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. 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 The large bold title above the image read, Women being blooded at an otter-hunt.Footnote Holding an extreme and uncompromising policy, it developed more dynamic methods in an attempt to gain both publicity and prohibition. Coulson, Otter Worrying A Protest, The Humanitarian, August 1908, 61. 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 58. The passage not only stresses the moral inconsistency of the public, it also underlines the hypocrisy of sportsmen. .but an essential portion of any intelligible system of ethics or social science.Footnote How to Get Rid of Otters? (Helpful Guide and Quick Facts) Collinson quotes from the second chapter of Isaak Walton's The Compleat Angler: Or the Contemplative Man's Recreation (1653): God keep you all, gentlemen, and send you meet this day with another bitch otter, and kill her merrily, and all her young ones too.Footnote The underlying motivation for these very specific criticisms is a much broader belief that all living beings feel pain and suffer. 3. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s however verbal disapproval was replaced with more subtle visual rebukes. Ormond, Richard . 18. Total loading time: 0 WebSea 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. 20 He was also a member of the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports and an unwavering opponent of otter hunting. A high proportion of the League were women. It was the only organisation that called for the legal protection of otters at the beginning of the twentieth century.Footnote Bates wrote this chapter on the basis that he liked otters but, despite living within a mile of a river valley, had never seen one in the wild. Why Otters Are Endangered? - Earth and World 2022 56 14 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. He is remembered today for his monumental two-volume Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages (191921); for his natural history collections now held at Kew, the British Museum, and London Zoo; and for his identification of the okapi (Okapi johnstoni) in the Congo in 1901.Footnote By 2016, over 4,000 river otters had been translocated to 23 states. 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 This meant the League had far fewer opportunities to criticise otter hunting and by 1918 it recognised that it was the extravagance of spending vast sums of money on hunting and shooting, rather than the cruelty of blood sports, which aroused public resentment.Footnote During the period 1969-72, 89 sea otters were translo-cated to British Columbia; 59 otters were released in Washington in 1969-70. 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. . The evidence seems clear enough.Footnote He had been influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and was a keen member of the Vegetarian Society and the Humanitarian League and after 1893 devoted much time and money to administration and fund-raising for three main reform causes: vegetarianism, humanitarianism, and animal welfare. President Stephen Coleridge, his successor Lady Cory and several other members did the same. 90. WebOregons sea otters disappeared in flash of destruction, as one small part of an ocean-spanning fur boom driven by demand for their lush pelts. But in the early 2000s, their numbers exploded: From 2002 to 2011, the sea-otter population more The commercial trade began in They might be horrified if you suggested that they wished the otter any harm. Has data issue: false . Williamson dedicated Tarka the Otter to William Rogers. He focussed on several key themes including the hunting of pregnant otters and the demoralising effects of participating in the hunt. 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. 6. In advance of a major test in 1968, the U.S. Atomic Ene The first to second the motion was Ernest Bell who pointed out that otter hunting was just as unsportsmanlike as shooting birds from traps. The History of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds (Powys, 1988), p. 24.Google Scholar. 46 The hypocrisy of clergy preaching high moral standards and Christian virtues yet killing for fun was regularly exploited by members of the Humanitarian League. The aesthetic quality of animals was also important to him. CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also It is pleasant to read that after such heroic conduct on the part of the poor beast, the hunter's heart softened and the whelp restored.Footnote He presented the case for his unauthorised but friendly amendment at the Egyptian Hall, Mansion House. 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 Oliver, Roland, Johnston, Sir Henry Hamilton (18581927), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [online]Google Scholar. Rivers are then lovely with kingcup and ladysmock, meadows are starred and belled with daisy and cowslip, and, above all, the female otter is in cub. 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 A part of this pamphlet, which included this quotation, was reprinted in Cruel Sports magazine in 1929. WebThe otters were then protected by the international fur seal treaty, which banned sea otter hunting. WebFrom 1941 till 1957, an interim agreement between the U.S. and Canada regulated the harvesting of sea otters. 87 11 88 shot but they felt that many otters were preserved for hunting, a shameful blot on our civilisation. In his opinion everyone had a right to enjoy this animal in its natural surroundings, not just otter hunters. 60. The following month the four-page leaflet, Otters and Men, was issued at the price of 1d. But what matter? 41. Figure 4. 20. And as a relatively inexpensive sport, such social changes meant otter hunting had become a less appealing target for them. Perhaps surprisingly, despite four decades of campaigns against the sport, the article does not describe otter hunting as something controversial. 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. 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. young and thoughtful. . Salt edited the two Humanitarian League journals: Humanity, later renamed The Humanitarian (18951919) and The Humane Review (19001910). . of compassion, love, gentleness, and universal benevolence, the Humanitarian League clearly set itself apart from other reform oriented bodies. 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. Render date: 2023-05-01T08:20:46.153Z The exposure was made all the more effective by the contradictory responses from the otter hunters involved. phospholipid bilayer of a cell. 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 35. The latter is probably more in keeping with the prosaic style of the pamphlet. Instead, it focussed on one man, Mr Sidney Varndell. Coulson compared the death of the fox with the death of the otter to emphasise the cruelty of the latter. 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 Google Scholar. 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. 42. 51. Each image is accompanied with a caption and a paragraph explaining the scene. 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? Salt, Henry, Seventy Years Among Savages (London, 1921) p. 141 2. 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. . Newcastle Daily Journal, 29th May 1914, cited at http://www.henrysalt.co.uk/friends/colonel-coulson. Smith, Virginia, Bell, Ernest (18511933), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [online]Google Scholar. Loss of sea otters accelerating the effects of climate . The scientist built a tube that was divided by an. 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. Offering close proximity and participatory practices of seeing (gazing) and doing (the stickle), any member of an otter hunt could participate in infamous scenes. The letter argued that no reasonable excuse can be found for such conduct, misnamed sport which was morally wrong and barbaric. Johnston condemned otter hunting and urged the government to give the mammal legal protection in his 1903 publication British Mammals. women too seem frenzied with the desire to kill.Footnote Summer hunting across rugged river valleys offered strenuous physical exertion in the sun, whilst facilitating a picnic and a paddle. confined to otter hunting, they also tried to divide the hunting fraternity by distinguishing the sporting conduct of otter hunters from fox hunters, stag hunters and hare hunters: If the sporting set consider it unsporting to hunt some animals in the breeding season, why does this not apply to otters?Footnote