Farmers suffering again
THE government’s purge on gas-guzzling vehicles is seriously hurting dale residents who need 4x4s for their everyday lives, a
Teesdale farming support group says.
Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Services (UTASS) says “extortionate” tax hikes on 4x4 vehicles are punishing rural communities.
I totally disagree, my first spaniel had a tail, against my grandfather better judgement, because I felt they looked better with a tail. Sadly once she started working I was proved to be wrong, as she damaged it time after time, until it had to be removed. I felt very guilty for being so pigheaded.
Spaniels are the worst for this kind of damage because of there enthusiasm and tail wagging Technic. Also the kind of cover they work in, plays a major role, and has a major effect. The shoots I currently beat on have woods full of bramble and areas of thick gorse.
Therefore, in my view unless they have a small part of their tails removed, a considerable number of working gun dogs (notably spaniels) will suffer bloody and painful damage to the ends of their undocked tails.
There has been an increase in the numbers of adult gun dogs requiring partial tail amputation in Sweden since docking was banned there.
While the law allows, I will not risk putting a dog of mine through any unnecessary suffering, so will continue to have my working spaniels tails docked.
More stupidity :sad:
The difference between sitting behind a desk writing propaganda and the reality of life in the wild could not be more stark than in the case of the Hunting Act and its implementation.
Brought into law through a strange cocktail of good and bad intentions, it always had the potential to fall flat on its face when put into practice. That’s not to say that there haven’t been successful prosecutions – there have – but the vast majority of these cases could have been brought under pre-existing legislation. The Hunting Act wasn’t needed to catch these people.
But what about the people who haven’t been caught? ‘Animal abusers’ like West Country farmer Giles Bradshaw, for example, who consistently breaks the law by using his dogs to chase away deer from his woodland and then compounds his criminality by viciously not shooting those deer as the Hunting Act requires. His excuse for this cruel act is that he doesn’t want to see deer killed unnecessarily. Yes, funny that, isn’t it? An animal welfare law that makes you shoot an animal when you would prefer not to. Don’t believe me? Well, here’s the wording from the Act:
“Stalking a wild mammal, or flushing it out of cover, is exempt hunting if the conditions in this paragraph are satisfied”…one of which is…”the stalking or flushing out does not involve the use of more than two dogs”…and another is…”reasonable steps are taken for the purpose of ensuring that as soon as possible after being found or flushed out the wild mammal is shot dead by a competent person.”
In fact, reading the whole Act would be an interesting exercise for many anti hunt people, who simply assume that this law is a good thing and might be surprised by the strange and illogical nature of its drafting. Of course most won’t do that and it is this ignorance that is exploited by the anti-hunting groups.
For me, as long as the docking is for the prevention of further problems I have no problem with this, If it is cosmetic i do have a problem.
As already mentioned, sheep have part of there tail docked for there welfare.
Factory farmed pigs have there's docked before the other pigs chew them off.
Some poultry, ducks, and game birds have part of the upper beak removed(De-beaking) This can be a permanent thing or some thing that grows out, depending on how far up the beak the cut is made.
These and many practices still continue all over the world for animal welfare
Foxy is correct, we do have some strange double standards between pets, animals that we eat and our wildlife
Dramatic fall in number of Scotland's poisoned birds of prey
Good news of coarse, but I am confused and wonder if anyone can shed some light please.
Last year saw a sharp fall in the number of illegally poisoned birds of prey in Scotland, in advance of tough new laws making landowners liable for persecution by their gamekeepers.
The latest map of poisoning locations released by the Scottish government on Wednesday showed that there were 10 incidents in 2011 involving 16 dead birds of prey, roughly half the 22 incidents recorded the year before, which involved 28 deaths by poisoning.
The drop in the number of killings last year, which involved seven buzzards, four red kites, two peregrine falcons, two sparrowhawks and one golden eagle, has raised hopes that a concerted campaign by police, wildlife agencies, Scottish ministers and landowners has begun making an impact.
I wonder how you poison a bird of prey that, to the best of my knowledge, does not eat carrion
