We can learn a lot about living in harmony with wildlife from the residents of the Algarve in Portugal. They seem to absolutely revere the Stork and it is both a wonderful spectacle and a pleasure to see how the Portuguese seem to embrace the thousands of storks arriving from their migration. Each year they take up residence in their personal nests just like the hordes of human tourists. They make their huge nests in the villages, towns and cities wherever they please and return each year to the same one. They are oblivious to the noise of traffic and human activity and the residents reciprocate by appearing unmindful of them.
They are totally protected in Portugal and it is illegal to kill them, disturb them or destroy their nests, and as they always return to the same nest each year they have a right of tenure for as long as they wish so this is why you will see many abandoned brick chimneys, pylons, tree trunks and buildings with nests perched on top.
They are not fussed about residing in the centre of towns and will choose mobile masts, church clocktowers, apartment blocks, residential houses and factories to set up home. From their vantage points they will peer down at you while tourists peer up at them and take photographs and locals just pass on by as they are part of daily life there.
Storks have no vocal chords and are therefore mute, but you will not have difficulty in locating them as instead of uttering bird song they produce a sound like someone tapping hollow pieces of wood together by throwing their heads back and clicking their huge beaks.
What a pleasure though to see animals being treated with so much respect in this way, a far cry from the UK where any animal or bird, protected or not, is killed legally under licence in the name of progress.
Although Portugal is a relatively safe haven for them, and they are supposedly protected worldwide, hundreds if not thousands never make it back each year because they are flagrantly shot and killed in countries like Malta and the Lebanon as they migrate across the Sahara through the near east to southern Europe. They do not fly over the Mediterranean sea because there are no suitable air currents so they divert and funnel into flocks of thousands over countries to the east and Gibraltar in the west. They were once shot purely for subsistence food, but now it is a highly organised and popular sport and causes the demise of so many of these beautiful and endearing birds.
The Algarve town of Silves is a kind of spa hill resort for them and storks almost outnumber the human residents. On a recent visit I could not help myself from stopping at almost every street corner to stare up and watch them. Even sitting at a pavement café we had a pair clacking away above us. If you ever decide to visit the Algarve in the spring and summer it is worth taking some time out from the sun and sea and spend a little time in the company of the Storks. You do not even have to forgo the Sangria as there is probably a bar nearby with a nest above it where you can reflect on what these birds have gone through to reach safety.
Whenever there is talk about the Hunting Act it tends to revolve around fox-hunting but other forms of hunting with dogs were also banned particularly hare-coursing. Fox hunts were not disbanded, but given an olive branch and allowed to flourish through drag or trail hunting and remain popular events with the public particularly the festive Boxing Day hunts. Traditional fox-hunting with dogs is still legal in Northern Ireland and hare coursing events continue in southern Ireland. This has allowed hunts to continue to breed and keep their hound packs for the day traditional hunting is made legal again.
In the case of hare coursing, although there is an outright ban, there has been little protection for the hares as illicit coursing continues unabated in some parts of the country, particularly eastern England and just like fox hunting the police and enforcement authorities have no way of stopping it even though they have more powers than for fox hunting. They have been forced to use hundred year old laws like the Night Poaching Act 1828 and Game Act 1831 to help combat it as the Hunting Act is so useless. Some Police authorities have stated that it is more prevalent now than before the Act with hundreds of dogs abandoned, injured and killed as a result. [More on hare coursing in a future post]
The Act was badly conceived mainly because the Government tried to appease all sides of the debate and did not consider the practical aspects which has made the law a bit of a farce and has resulted in some forms of hunting of foxes and hare coursing to continue.
There is not let up for the poor hare with gangs of hare coursers roaming the countryside.
The UK Hunting Act 2004 is so complicated and full of loopholes that law enforcers try not to involve themselves in investigating alleged offences because obtaining sufficient evidence to put before a court is costly, time-consuming and a nightmare. This becomes obvious when you read the various websites and reams of advice issued to try to clarify the subject .
So what is hunting with dogs?
The legal definition under the Hunting Act 2004 of hunting is:
to pursue or kill for sport or food;
to try and find by diligent searching and to pursue and capture;
to pursue or approach stealthily or to move silently through;
to drive (a bird or animal, especially game bird) from cover.
The Hunting Act 2004 describes 5 punishable offences:
Hunting a wild mammal with a dog;
permitting land to be used for hunting a wild mammal with a dog;
permitting a dog to be used for hunting a wild mammal;
participating in, attending, facilitating or permitting land to be used for the purposes of hare coursing;
entering, permitting or handling a dog in a hare coursing event.
A wild mammal is defined or considered to be a mammal which is living wild, bred or tamed; in captivity or confinement; escaped or released from captivity.
Basically on the face of it any live mammal is protected from being hunted or pursued by dog(s), but of course this would be too easy and so to appease the hunting lobby, hobbyists and pest controllers there are exemptions which can be exploited to continue fox-hunting.
The “Unenforceable ban”
So it is legal to use dogs to hunt rats, rabbits and wounded shot hares, but there are several farcical loopholes that hunts can use to continue hunting almost normally under what is known as the “unenforceable ban” which include:
using 2 dogs to “flush a fox out of cover” to be shot by a qualified marksman if it is being done to prevent damage to property, food crops, timber, fisheries or biological diversity, but of course the marksman could miss and the fox escape with the trained hounds in pursuit.
“flushing a fox to a bird of prey“ which allows a hunt to take a bird of prey along and as many hounds as they wish to flush out a fox “for the purpose of enabling a bird of prey to hunt the wild mammal” as long as the bird is capable of catching the animal such as a large eagle owl.
But the major loophole was allowing drag or trail hunting to continue, a situation that was always a recipe for future trouble, a fact well anticipated by the hunters. Allowing packs of hounds to continue careering around the countryside was always going to lead to confrontations with foxes and you can almost imagine the Master lining the hounds up for their pre-hunt pep talk :
“Right lads normal tactics today, you know the drill. Try and keep on track, but if you get a whiff of a real fox scent and happen to veer off in its direction do not make it too obvious lads as we will all be in trouble-know what I mean, [Wink Wink]”.
Hounds of course are not going to go against their natural instincts and sense of smell obtained over countless generations and many huntsmen are not going to pass up a golden chance to hunt a real fox when the opportunity presents itself. Although it would be heartening to believe that not all Hunts participate in any wrong doing realistically many probably do. Everyone knows that the excuses that the chase was purely accidental or unintentional and the hounds were out of control are always going to be difficult to legally dispute. The act of hunting must be proven as predetermined or intentional which is difficult to show in most cases.
Anti-hunt saboteurs continue to monitor hunts
Many potential court cases are dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) due to what they view as a lack of tangible evidence and those that do reach court are rarely successful in regard to fox-hunting, but there have been many successful prosecutions for hare coursing. The Police and RSPCA do not have the time, and in the case of the Police, the inclination to keep an eye on the hunts which results in anti-hunting charities and hunt saboteurs having to continue monitoring hunts. This in turn causes friction leading to often violent disturbances. In practical terms it is impossible to keep track of the freely roaming hunts which are often held on private land.
There was a golden opportunity missed to completely halt hunting with dogs if the law makers had only banned drag hunting and the keeping, breeding and use of packs of hounds, but this was too easy. If the day ever arrives when hunting with hounds is made legal again, they will be ready and waiting to step in with all horns blaring complete with all the equipment and facilities to begin again.
