The Secret Culling of Seals in the UK

The Tuesday April 7th edition of the Daily Mirror featured a shocking article about the secret culling of seals which goes on in the UK every year, yet has had hardly any media exposure. There has been much publicity over the years regarding the brutal seal culls which take place in Canada and a range of other countries however few people seem to know that it goes on here at home. Despite the fact that seals are supposedly 'protected' in the UK, hundreds are shot every year. In Scotland alone 205 were killed in 2014 and this year the government has authorised the deaths of up to 859-662 grey seals and 197 common seals.
The simple fact is that their so-called protected status is a joke. A loophole in the law allows seals to be killed if they 'threaten fisheries' which basically means the farmed salmon industry and other farmed fish such as trout. This does not mean that the seals are being culled in order to conserve wild fish. It means that they are being killed in order to defend artificial fish farms which are springing up all over the coast to meet consumer demand for, in particular, farmed salmon. This is not a conservation exercise it is a base profit driven one. Moreover in Scotland farmers and waterways managers need a licence to cull seals and they have to stick to quotas and record the numbers killed. But no such requirement exists for the rest of the UK. Therefore in England and Wales seals are a 'protected species' which have no protection. Nice.

The way in which the seals are culled in the UK can be particularly cruel as the licence in Scotland allows seals to be shot all year round, including during the breeding season. A request to ban culling during the breeding season was turned down by the SNP led Scottish government. In the rest of the UK they can also b e shot all year round. This means that when the mothers are shot the weaning pups slowly starve to death. A spokesman for the Sea Shepherd UK campaign group said:

"Typically every year over 300 seals are declared as having been shot. We are convinced that the real number of seals shot greatly exceeds this official number and some conservation groups have put the number at 2000 grey and common seals shot annually around Scotland's coast".

It is clear that Nicola Sturgeon's SNP has failed completely to protect seals in Scotland and that the situation in the rest of the UK is even worse. While I'd be reluctant to support an organised boycott of farmed salmon except as a last resort, this may well ultimately be something which we need to consider and which the Green Parties of England & Wales and Scotland can take the lead in.

Here Comes the Sixth Mass Extinction : And This One is Man Made

Readers of this blog may have seen on the news last week, in one of those rare instances where the national tv news features ecological issues, that the Northern White Rhino (see above) is about to become extinct. Only five of then still exist and the one male and four females are all too old now to breed. So that is it, when they are gone they are gone forever, bar some huge scientific leap which enables their recreation from frozen sperm and egg samples.
Our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals, the sixth wave of extinctions in the past half-billion years. We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day . It could be a scary future indeed, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century.  Unlike past mass extinctions, caused by events like asteroid strikes, volcanic eruptions, and natural climate shifts, the current crisis is almost entirely caused by humans. In fact, 99 percent of currently threatened species are at risk from human activities, primarily those driving habitat loss, introduction of exotic species, and global warming . Because the rate of change in our biosphere is increasing, and because every species’ extinction potentially leads to the extinction of others bound to that species in a complex ecological web, numbers of extinctions are likely to snowball in the coming decades as ecosystems unravel.
The latest edition of Green World, the Green Party's official magazine, contains a very good article on the extent of the problem entitled, "Protecting Biodiversity":

WHICH TYPES OF SPECIES ARE PARTICULARLY IN DANGER?

The answer is a broad range from amphibians and insects to birds and primates. The new 'Living Planet' report from the WWF and the Zoological Society of London reveals that there has been a decline of 50% in the world's wildlife populations since 1970. In particular:
- A third or more of the 6,300 species of amphibians are in danger of extinction.
- Globally, BirdLife International estimates that 12 percent of known 9,865 bird species are now considered threatened, with 192 species, or 2 percent, facing  an “extremely high risk” of extinction in the wild, two more species than in 2008.
-Across the globe, 1,851 species of fish , 21 percent of all fish species evaluated, were deemed at risk of extinction by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) in 2010, including more than a third of sharks and rays.
- About 90 percent of primates, the group that contains monkeys, lemurs, lorids, galagos, tarsiers, and apes (as well as humans), live in tropical forests, which are fast disappearing. The IUCN estimates that almost 50 percent of the world’s primate species are at risk of extinction. Overall, the IUCN estimates that half the globe’s 5,491 known mammals are declining in population and a fifth are clearly at risk of disappearing forever with no less than 1,131 mammals across the globe classified as endangered, threatened, or vulnerable.
- Invertebrates, from butterflies to mollusks to earthworms to corals, are vastly diverse and though no one knows just how many invertebrate species exist, they’re estimated to account for about 97 percent of the total species of animals on Earth . Of the 1.3 million known invertebrate species, the IUCN has evaluated about 9,526 species, with about 30 percent of the species evaluated at risk of extinction.

THE SITUATION IN THE UK : THE STATE OF NATURE REPORT

On Wednesday 22 May 2013 The State of Nature report was launched by Sir David Attenborough and UK conservation charities at the Natural History Museum in London while simultaneous events were held in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. Unfortunately this did not receive any way near the media attention it deserved. Scientists working side-by-side from 25 wildlife organisations compiled a stock take of our native species, the first of its kind in the UK. The State of Nature report reveals that 60% of the species studied have declined over recent decades. More than one in ten of all the species assessed are under threat of disappearing from our shores altogether.
Sir David Attenborough said at the time:

“Our islands have a rich diversity of habitats which support some truly amazing plants and animals. We should all be proud of the beauty we find on our own doorstep; from bluebells carpeting woodland floors and delicately patterned fritillary butterflies, to the graceful basking shark and the majestic golden eagle soaring over the Scottish mountains.This report shows that our species are in trouble, with many declining at a worrying rate. However, we have in this country a network of passionate conservation groups supported by millions of people who love wildlife."

You can read the State of Nature report here:

http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/publications

WHAT IS CAUSING THE MASSIVE DECLINE IN WILDLIFE?

The short answer is human activity and human greed. Development and industrialisation leads to habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. Fragmentation of habitat makes it impossible for species to breed as small areas of woodland and water are not enough as gene pools are limited. Pollution is of course an ongoing problem with amphibians particularly vulnerable as amphibian skin is sensitive to contaminants.
Intensive farming methods is a massive cause of bird decline in the UK as powerful insecticides kill the insects which birds rely on for protein to feed their chicks, particularly the insect grubs. Hunting of course explains the decline in elephants and rhinos, which are killed for their horns and tusks. Capitalism can perversely raise the price of these horns/tusks as each animal shot reduces the numbers and increases the rarity.
Add to the above the effects of global warming, logging, the introduction of invasive species, road building and over-fishing and you get the idea.

Therefore unless we act now, both in the UK and globally, the 21st Century will be the century when much of the wildlife which we often take for granted will vanish from the planet.

We Need to Save Our Farmers with Fair Trade Milk

Britain's dairy farmers are currently in a state of crisis. The big supermarkets have driven milk prices well below production costs and as a result farmers are having to sell up or are going bankrupt.Last week the number of dairy farms in England and Wales dropped below 10,000 for the first time and all the signs suggest that the exodus from farming will continue unless government action is taken.
Some readers of this blog may be thinking that this is actually a good thing either because they are vegans or because they see over-consumption of meat and its related products as contributing to global warming. While I myself am neither vegan or vegetarian, I do accept that ecologically it would be beneficial if worldwide meat consumption went down in the long term. However it is essential that any attempts to achieve this long-term are achieved in partnership with livestock farmers and via offering them financially beneficial alternatives rather than working against them. In the short-term however we must do everything to support British dairy farmers and for a number of reasons it is green to do so.

Why Should We Help Dairy Farmers?

Firstly if we don't help the small family dairy farms then they will disappear to be replaced with ever larger industrialised farms where the cows are put under even more pressure to produce milk yields beyond their metabolic limits. Already in the USA there are huge 'battery-cow' farms where 1000s of animals are kept permanently locked up inside narrow pens and injected with umpteen hormones in order to increase production. There are plans to set up similar institutions in the UK. Such institutionalised animal abuse is a far cry from the cow in the field who gets to live a natural life grazing in the open air. If, like me, you eat meat then the key consideration should be whether the animal has led a decent life before going to slaughter. Letting our dairy farmers go to the wall in order to be replaced by huge agribusinesses with battery style housing pens would be a huge setback to any real notion of animal welfare. See below:

If we are to avoid the above becoming the norm then we must defend our family dairy farmers.
Secondly if more of our farmers cannot survive in farming then the pressure will be on to sell their land to developers. The coalition government has removed virtually all planning protection from the ordinary countryside and created a 'presumption in favour of development'. In other words, if the land isn't farmed there is a high chance that the land will disappear under housing estates, shopping centres or warehouses. It will certainly not become a nice ecological meadow, well not as long as any of the other parties remain in government it won't.

What is Causing the Current Crisis?

The root of the problem is the distorted economic system and the supermarkets. The latter are driving down prices to a level that is destroying farmers economically. Most of the major British supermarkets are now selling milk very cheaply, in one case four pints of conventional whole milk for 89 pence (£0.89). Apologies for dancing between pints and litres, but four pints of milk is 2.27 litres, so divide that into 89 pence and you get just over 39.2 ppl (pence per litre). This is theoretically the total amount of money that has to be divided between the farmer, processor and retailer.  On the other hand two pints of organic milk cost on average around £1.14 instead. Doing the same maths, that makes the retail price of the organic milk almost exactly £1 per litre, more than twice the price of the conventional product.
As a result of the supermarkets, farmers are under pressure to produce more and more milk in order to make ends meet. Yet the result of doing so is even lower prices. It becomes a vicious circle. In addition Russia has banned imports of dairy products from the European Union in response to EU sanctions over the Ukraine. This has led to more milk staying in the EU and a further catastrophic downward slide in farm gate milk prices.

What is the Solution?

Ultimately the best solution to this would be regulation from on high either from governments or the institutions of the European Union. They would need to take on the supermarkets. However realistically this is not going to happen because national governments remain wedded to neo-liberalism and free-market zealotry. Until the UK and Europe goes politically green nothing will change this.
Therefore an alternative way to improve the financial fortunes of dairy farmers could be through the emergence of some kind of public contract, based on the principles of fair trade, where consumers can buy milk and dairy products knowing the price the farmer has been paid is equitable and fair.
This means using our purchasing power right now to support all those beleaguered small family dairy farms on the edge of a precipice, through the introduction of a fair trade milk scheme which gives them a guaranteed fair price, providing their production systems are ethical. We could challenge the various certification organisations to introduce a fair trade milk label, with some conditions for entry. A fair price should be agreed and then all fair trade milk given clear labels.
While I am often skeptical about green consumerism and its power to change things, it seems to me that in this case the only realistic short-term solution is a fair trade scheme, combined with a publicity drive to highlight the issues to the public.

Chris Packham & Animal Cruelty on "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here"

BBC wildlife presenter Chris Packham has written an official letter of complaint to the presenters of, "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here" (Ant & Dec) complaining about the use of animals on the show. While I would question why the letter went to Ant & Dec rather than the shows' producers, I would totally support the sentiments behind Chris' letter. This awful programme regularly features maggot eating, chewing kangaroo genitals, rolling around in dug outs with live rats and so on all served up as entertainment. Its the modern equivalent of lobbing brickbats and faeces at the man in the stocks or going to the bear baiting ring. It is entertainment by humiliation all 'justified' by the knowledge that the Z list celebrities on it are desperate enough to do anything to revive their sagging careers. Together with the 'lets laugh at the village idiot' appeal of the early episodes of the X Factor it represents the sheer nastiness to which reality TV has sunk over the last decade in the drive for ratings. You can hear more of what I think about reality TV in my video below:

As far as wildlife is concerned, Chris states:

“It spoils the show because it’s simply out of date, some would say barbaric and actually it’s often pretty silly too, because many viewers recognise that the species used are not dangerous, or significantly toxic or venomous in the first place. I’m afraid I can guarantee that some animals are harmed during production, because they are fragile or easily stressed. Or simply killed, as they are in your ‘Bushtucker Trials’.”

Chris explains this further in an article in the latest BBC Wildlife magazine (see below).