Category: Animals in Entertainment

Issues surrounding use of animal in entertainment

Releasing captive bred pheasants should be abandonment.

No legitimate reason to abandon millions of hapless birds each year.

On Good Friday 2019, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) allegedly raided a large pheasant and partridge hatchery in Mildenhall, Suffolk and released 9,000 pheasants into the countryside as part of their “dismantle the shooting industry farm by farm, shoot by shoot”. Later thousands were “illegally” released from hatcheries in Cornwall and Wiltshire.

Whether this was of any benefit to the pheasants is a mute point, but every autumn we continue to allow millions of the creatures to be released to be killed by humans, road traffic, starvation and predators alike. To anyone with little knowledge of the pheasant and partridge shooting industry, which is worth £2 billion in revenue to the UK, the number ALF set free might seem colossal, but in reality they only represented 0.028% of the total 30-35,000,000 estimated released each year.

Despite all the arguments, there is no legitimate reason to abandon millions of these innocent birds and leave them to their fate, as it does nothing to preserve the wild pheasant population in the UK or conserve habitat or the countryside as it is purely done for revenue and sport.

I use the word “abandon” advisedly as the terminology everyone prefers to use is “release” as though we are referring to a Born Free scenario of releasing wild animals back into their natural habitat. If it was any other captive bred or companion animal the action would be classified as illegal abandonment.

Unfortunately, these hapless birds have little wild heritage and half of the 30 million pheasants and 6 million partridges are imported into the UK as day old chicks according to the British Association of Shooting & Conservation (BASC), then reared intensively in hatcheries and then put outside in pens to ‘acclimatise’ to the wild.

50% of pheasants die before anyone gets a chance to shoot them.

In reality young captive reared pheasants are completely naïve with no experience of the wild or parental influence to guide them away from danger or instil natural instincts, making them extremely vulnerable to predators particularly foxes.  They have a reduced survival rate and limited breeding success even if they are lucky to survive into their second year. At one point a few years back ‘hunters’ were complaining that the birds were becoming too docile and tame and the industry had to use new pheasant strains with more wild characteristics.

According to the industries’ own research the survival rate of pheasants is appalling with:

  • 36% of them being eaten by predators (23% before anyone has a chance to shoot them);
  • 7% killed in road accidents and from disease;
  • and 3.5% dying while being raised

which equates to 50% mortality before hunting begins. 37.5% are then shot during the four-month season (7% of these not on the shooting estates), making a grand total of a staggering 84% mortality. The few that survive all the carnage are mostly wiped out within a year.  Research has indicated that their release each year has no effect on increasing the wild population and is purely for commercial reasons.

Pheasant in countryside

With all the knowledge and research indicating that reared birds have a reduced survival rate, high mortality, limited breeding success and an inability to fend for themselves adequately in the wild, it could be argued that their release qualifies as illegal abandonment and causing unnecessary suffering, particularly in the context that it is not necessary to release them in the first place, but everyone seems to distance themselves from this point.

Taking a purely cynical standpoint, if this kind of hunting is to continue why not just cut out most of the pre-shoot mortality, road deaths and suffering and just place the birds in large aviaries where the marksmen can kill them at leisure like a kind of turkey shoot, but can you imagine the outcry then. Looked at in purely realistic terms this would lessen the deaths and fewer birds would suffer, but of course it would be no “fun”, not “sporting” and might make people realise what a horrendous sport this really is.

Hares beleaguered on all sides & on the run.
Conservation charities are not always what they seem
Hunting with dogs and the “unenforceable” ban.
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Grand National – Carnage or Spectacle?

The excitement of the 2019 Grand National is over and it is time for the usual post mortem. One horse killed and another taken away by ambulance appears according to the media and racing authorities to have been a pretty good result. Two other horses, Forest des Aigles and Crucial Role, were also euthanised the day before but have received little attention. Track authorities and the British Horse Association (BHA) are obviously saddened again and Dickon White, of the Jockey Club  Stated:

“As a sport of animal lovers, we wanted every horse to come home – and sadly that’s not been the case with Up For Review”

a statement which makes it is difficult to get one’s head round what qualifies as being an animal lover these days. The media state that “38 runners returned safely” – but returned safely to where? Obviously their stable as they didn’t finish the race. Only 19 (47%) out of 40 actually past the finishing post.

Riderless race horse

It is not difficult to deduce from the statistics that most of the horses present just provide the spectacle and have no chance at all of competing or finishing the race. People watch the National for the excitement and anticipation of the stampede to the first fence when everyone holds their breath to see if they get over safely or fall. But do some racegoers secretly hope that there will be a spectacular pile up rather like in Formula One when the cars approach the first bend  or the cycle riders in the Tour de France. There is a certain element of wishing for tragedy as no one wants a “boring”race.

Carnage at the fences.

This year at the first fence Up For Review was brought down by another faller and was fatally injured and at the sixth fence three fell and one pulled up. So we had already lost 8 horses by the sixth fence and then the race continued without incident until we get to the 21st fence where a horse pulled up. Horses were then pulled up or refused at the 25th, 26th, and at the 27th a rider was unseated, then 4 horses refused or pulled up at the 28th and 5 at the 29th.

There is an obvious pattern here: the attrition rate increases the further into the race they get when more horses find that the going is too tough. These are all horses that are perhaps not fit or strong enough to last the course – the cannon fodder to make the race a spectacle and for who the race is too much of a challenge. It’s not science, but seems logical that horses tire just like humans in marathons or steeplechases and cannot find that last effort to finish.

The race is 14 fences too long & involves too many horses.

The racing fraternity are proud that the National is the longest National Hunt race in Britain and that it is the ultimate test of horse and jockey jumping 30 fences over a distance of 2.25 miles. And this is the problem. The race is too long, has too many high jumps and too many participants.

Many campaigners including the RSPCA believe the best way forward is to work with the authorities to improve the welfare of the horses during the race which they state they have done successfully for the last thirty years and list many so-called improvements, but most of these are just peripheral to the main problem. Thirty years on we still have horses dying and suffering and being injured and more importantly horses being pushed beyond their limits.

There is no chance of the race being banished in the foreseeable future because of all the tradition and history behind it just like fox-hunting, not to mention the huge financial benefits to everyone involved. And of course supporters want carnage and spectacle not just any old horse race, because this is what they watch it for. The only way of reducing the suffering is to shorten the race to one lap of the course, cut the numbers involved and lower the fences, but this is never going to happen.

Related articles:

Endurance racing causes more deaths than the Grand National
Horrors of the Hobby Horse Hall Race Track Remembered