In 1901 Coulson had written that: Some of the clergy revel in it the very men who pose afterwards as the expounders of high morality.Footnote Afterwards everyone who took part in the orgy was probably ashamed of himself. 63 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. In these terms the iconic image of Varndell could be seen as positively publicising the face of otter hunting. Here Bates presents a very personal and very committed attack on otter hunting in a style of writing quite unlike his own. The Guardian, 9th May 2010. Interestingly, the magazine did not choose a classic scene of hounds in a watery landscape. 1823. Large numbers of sea cows occurred in the Commander Islands at the time of their discovery by Europeans in 1741. Figure 1. The incident was widely reported and horrified the public. 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 The scientist built a tube that was divided by an. 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. 60. His letter writing campaign against rabbit-coursing on Sundays in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924. This is not to say that those within the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports subscribed to this notion. Moore-Colyer, R. J., Feathered Women and Persecuted Birds: The Struggle against the Plumage Trade, c. 18601922, Rural History, 11 (2000), 5773 This reversal shows that the campaigning did have an impact, albeit a small one, on the public perception of the activity. Nearly 280 river otters were captured in the Adirondacks and Catskills and relocated to 15 sites in central and western New York during a three-year period in the 1990s. Sea otters, in turn, are equally voracious predators of sea urchins. Hopkinson, T., ed., Picture Post 193850 (London, 1970), p. 8 By the mid-1960s, Amchitka Island was being used a site for nuclear testing, which eventually killed many sea otters in the area. 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. The idea of introducing a slaughter limit helps to explain why his case for protecting the otter did not play a part in the rhetoric of the Humanitarian League or the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports. socially, much of society still subscribed to the Victorian notion of womanhood. For almost 40 years, the otters in southeast Alaska scrapped by. 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. 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 At least 23 million Amazonian animals, including the otters, were hunted for their hides from 1904 to 1969. Ernest Bell, The Barnstaple Cat-Worrying Case, The Animals Friend (1906), 43. 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. Leeds Women Protest at an Otter Hunt, Cruel Sports, August 1935. Writing in the Morning Leader, Colonel Coulson described how an otter, which had been hunted for seven hours, was struck and killed by a blow from a metal-shod stick wielded by an otter hunter in a boat. The letter argued that no reasonable excuse can be found for such conduct, misnamed sport which was morally wrong and barbaric. 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. 63. In 1939 another iconic image came out on the front cover of the Picture Post (Figure 5). 87. Hounds Feather as They Search the River Banks; (10) Followers Take to the Water; (11) This Is the Kill; (12) The Whip Holds Up the Trophy. There is no danger, no risk, absolutely no excuse for this form of baiting except the insensate one of a lust for blood.Footnote 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. Large hunting efforts were under way with the help of a massive ship in the water. 4. 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). He was also a member of the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports and an unwavering opponent of otter hunting. Holding an extreme and uncompromising policy, it developed more dynamic methods in an attempt to gain both publicity and prohibition. WebAll the otters that are in there might leave to get away from the smell. and provided further evidence of the barbarous spirit engendered by indulgence in blood sports.Footnote Although celebrated by reviewers in the Illustrated London News and Athenaeum, the subsequent engraving failed to sell well and John Ruskin argued in 1846 that Landseer before he gives us any more writhing otters, or yelping packs should consider whether such a scene was worthy of contemplation.Footnote . . 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. 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 Donald, Diana, Picturing Animals in Britain 17501850 (New Haven and London, 2007), pp. It appears to be more about human behaviour than animal suffering. 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 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. 76, There is a real sense that women should have had the emotional authority to know better.Footnote Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 For many, the behaviour of these dynamic and somewhat bedraggled women, clad in sodden attire, was far from ladylike. 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? 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 Williamson's book was based on considerable personal research and knowledge. But what matter? Covering the issues which most concerned. Although this unusual interlude was tolerated with good humour at first, one follower of the hunt retaliated by burning a number of leaflets. George Greenwood made a similar observation in the 1914 publication, Killing for Sport: Men and, good heavens! 40, As a result of the Humanitarian League's campaigning, by 1906 otter hunting had become an issue of public debate. Glorying over being blooded at an Otter Hunt, http://www.henrysalt.co.uk/friends/colonel-coulson. The following year Bell and his followers formed the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports. Kean, Hilda, The Smooth Cool Men of Science: The Feminist and Socialist Response to Vivisection, History Workshop Journal (1995), 40:1, 1638 Ernest Bell, The RSPCA, The Animals Friend (1906), 169170; Reverend Joseph Stratton, The Abdication of the R.S.P.C.A., The Humanitarian, August 1906, 59. . 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.) These public demonstrations shed light on the respectability of the animal welfare movement. At this time the main justification for killing otters was the damage they did to fish stocks. 44 She is about to be afforded the pleasure, the privilege, of being harried and hunted and having her living guts ripped out by forty human beings, twenty or thirty hounds and some terriers.Footnote 34. This desire had different implications for different sorts of people. The Daily Mail, for instance, received several telegrams from masters of otter hounds opposing Coleridge's criticism and justifying their sport. Although Coleridge's speech was welcomed with loud cheers and rapturous applause, the chairman of the committee was far from impressed by the impromptu inclusion of the subject. In addition to this justification, any suggestion of cruelty is light-heartedly dismissed: It is improbable that most of the people who go otter hunting worry much about the humanities or the natural law of the thing. And as a relatively inexpensive sport, such social changes meant otter hunting had become a less appealing target for them. The RSPCA and its Objects, The Animal World, July 1906, 154. The committee concluded that the promotion of legislation and especially of controversial legislation, is not desirable at present and should instead be undertaken as far as possible by individuals.Footnote 74 19 Spearing was no longer permitted in the popular modern form. 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 30. to gratify the anglers craze.Footnote He was a founder member in 1903 of the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire and an opponent of big game hunting. 60. 35 This is clearly a splendid time. during the fur hunting period in the 18th and 19th centuries. In February 1918 the Representation of the People Act gave all women over the age of thirty the right to vote. 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. This increase in reintroduction effort would come to be known as one of the most ambitious and extensive carnivore restoration efforts in history. 36, The third, by Lady Florence Dixie, took the opportunity to publicise the Humanitarian League's work on blood sports. The Trust recently secured the first ongoing class licence to capture and transport live Eurasian otters trapped in well-fenced fisheries in England. Bates begins by considering the main excuse for killing otters, the supposed need to reduce predation on fish. The chapter entitled Otters and Men is important. 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. In a series of vignettes, Bates fondly describes the rivers, the creatures, the trees, the flowers, the buildings and the people that make up the watery landscape. With fox hunting, he argued, few perhaps ever see the death, and it is over almost in an instant but, owing to his strength and cat-like tenacity of life, the otter fights long and dies hard. 39. 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. The recent exposure in Devonshire, where a master of otter hounds was sentenced to imprisonment. What can look more ridiculous than a middle-aged woman, hurrying along, mile after mile, through wet grass and muddy pools, climbing fences and walls, her clothes sticking to her body and her hair half down her back?Footnote 73. The small caption reads: OTTER-HUNTING. 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? 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. Justice for the Animals, Otter-Hunting, Cruel Sports, October 1929, 128. Oliver, Roland, Johnston, Sir Henry Hamilton (18581927), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [online]Google Scholar. 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 Finally the author of the original article, J. C. Bristow-Noble, responded resentfully that On behalf of some of these daughters of Eve, I have now to state that it is of their opinion that the quarry, as is frequently the case, should always be allowed to escape. 51. Opponents, on the other hand, were offended by this inclusivity. For Bell, the only difference between an otter and a cat was their legal status. 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 WebThe feeding habits of otters vary greatly depending on species, location, and time of year or season. The following month the four-page leaflet, Otters and Men, was issued at the price of 1d. . 37, The first malpractice to be exposed in otter hunting itself was an incident that occurred on the River Tweed on 6th July 1907. In advance of a major test in 1968, the U.S. Atomic Ene The crucial connection, he discovered, was sea urchins. Six weeks later, on 9th September, the magazine's editor revealed that many readers had taken umbrage with the article, and invited further correspondence on the subject. On occasions deer-hunters hunted and killed hinds-in-calf. These snaps, which had been taken by otter hunters, were lifted from local newspapers then republished with evocative captions. . 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. Google Scholar. 58. 13. WebNo hunting (except waterfowl) during removed only by the user. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1906 Annual Report (1906), p. 127. 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 79. 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. In Alaska, 467 sea otters were translo-cated to several locations from 1965 to 1969. 12 Colonies were discovered around Alaska's Aleutian Islands and Prince William Sound in the 1930s. . artificial membrane that mimics the. 15. WebThe otters were then protected by the international fur seal treaty, which banned sea otter hunting. This opposition to the Bill was surprisingly effective. Varndell had mastered the Crowhurst Otter Hounds since 1905, and had missed only four days hunting in thirty-five years.Footnote 29 Nothing daunted, she returned at nightfall to the yard and once more endeavoured to free her cub, but with no better result than before. Why Otters Are Endangered? When, however, other members of the Hunt were moved to action by the scandal,Footnote When urchin populations spiked in response, the reefs held their ground. For campaigners, the killing of indefensible cubs and protective mothers was the antithesis of fair play, sportsmanship and manliness. 12. Stephen Coleridge was the second son of Lord Chief Justice of England, John Duke Coleridge, and great nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 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. 90. Collinson had previously led the Humanitarian League's campaign against flogging and was described by Henry Salt as a young north-countryman, self-taught, and full of native readiness and ingenuity, who at an early age had developed a passion for humanitarian journalism.Footnote Coulson compared the death of the fox with the death of the otter to emphasise the cruelty of the latter. On Tuesday 28th April, a small group of members from the Oxford Branch assembled in Islip to demonstrate against the Buckinghamshire Otter Hounds (Figure 2). 32 In just a few decades, this bustling civilization has withered into a ghost town. Salt, Henry, Seventy Years Among Savages (London, 1921) p. 141 . . 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. 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. One of the main reasons Bates spoke out against otter hunting was that he felt that a small minority had reduced his chances of seeing the otter. CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 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. By 2016, over 4,000 river otters had been translocated to 23 states. 41. . WebA scientist designed an experiment to test an. By placing value on the life of the animal, it was not the act of killing that was condemned, but rather the killers reaction to such an act. 31. In these terms, this exceptional incident was absorbed into the broader campaign against blood sports. He is astonished that the law of this country still allows this rotten and most bloody exhibition of behaviour and that such repugnant bloodiness survives in a so-called civilised age and country.Footnote Varndell became huntsman in 1904. Salt, Henry, Humanitarianism (London, 1891), p. 3 Syse, Karen Victoria Lykke, Otters as Symbols in the British Environmental Discourse, Landscape Research, 38 (2013), 54052CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mr Rose of the Eastern Counties Otter Hounds described the proposed Bill as most unfair and ridiculous and argued that otter hunting was grossly misrepresented: Long spiked poles are never used for the purposes suggested, but for assisting followers across ditches, rivers and fences. 56. 70 Bell-Irving, David Jardine, Tally-Ho: Fifty Years of Sporting Reminiscences (Dumfries, 1920), p. 120 Demonstration at a Meet of the Bucks Otter Hounds. Captain T. W. Sheppard, Decadence of Otter Hunting, The Field, 20th October 1906, 658. 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. Tarka soon became an iconic literary figure, and otter-hunting was made tangible to a new and wide audience.Footnote 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. Bell was sentenced to one month's imprisonment with hard labour and John Church, the Hunt's Whip, received half that sentence. 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? 64. 1. By setting this against contemporary instances he insinuates the unchanging attitudes of otter hunters over the centuries. 34 Figure 4. In the minds of campaigners it not only looked ridiculous, it was unacceptable. 1 and broadly disregarded spearing as one of the blood-thirsty methods used by our forefathers.Footnote The chairman eventually agreed to put the resolution to the meeting and it was carried with acclamation. 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 The main institutional differences were in their ideals and methods. 74. 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 Mackenzie, John M., The Empire of Nature (Manchester, 1988), p. 33 29. } Williamson dedicated Tarka the Otter to William Rogers. 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. They might be horrified if you suggested that they wished the otter any harm. shot but they felt that many otters were preserved for hunting, a shameful blot on our civilisation. 66. Wright, Catherine 50 hasContentIssue false, Copyright Cambridge University Press 2016. Prior to the maritime fur trade which began in the late eighteenth century, sea otters ranged from Japan, north through the Aleutian Islands and down the Pacific coast of North America to Baja California (Barabash-Nikiforov 1947). of the hunting fraternity. 14. 49. Google Scholar. Call a professional pest removal expert The following year, the Fur Seal Treaty was signed and although the He provides a typical instance from a Monthly Review (June 1906) article by J. C. Tregarthen: An otter's cub was captured and confined in the stableyard of a house near a river where the mother had been hunted during the day. For this reason, Bates believed that all animals, whether wild or domestic, should have the same legal rights. Colonel W. Lisle B. Coulson, The Otter Worry, in Henry Salt, ed., British Blood Sports: Let us go out and kill something (1901), pp. 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

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