Don't Let's Be Beastly

Remember that cute polar bear trapped on a tiny remaining slab of ice? But that was filmed in August, when the Alaskan ice melts anyway. In case you didn't know, polar bears can swim. So they just swim to the nearest land, which is always extremely close at hand. Polar bears never wander out far across the frozen sea only to be left stranded and in danger of drowning when the season of the year changes. Plenty of other things eat us opportunistically. But uniquely (or as good as - if there is another example, then I have never heard of it), the polar bear actively seeks out man as a prey.

Speaking of prey, of course, as was for some controversial earlier this year, buzzards' nests should be destroyed in order to protect pheasants, which we rightly shoot in order to eat. Unless you prefer broiler chicken and the products of sow crates to free range game bird and venison? Or do some animals matter more than others, and within that do our foodstuffs matter less than those which would eat them in our stead? You know, like chickens and sheep, along with the inhabitants of uneconomic hedgerows, mattering less than foxes...

Ah, yes, foxes. Apparently, they are now a problem in cities Well, whose fault is that? Why are there now so many more foxes than the countryside can feed? Pretending to ban foxhunting was what New Labour did instead of redistributing wealth in the right direction, and in order to cajole disgraceful MPs into voting for the Iraq War. Mind you, there had been majorities to ban it in the Major years. And its heartlands are Yorkshire, Wales, the Midlands, Devon and Cornwall, which until 2010 returned few or, in the Cornish case, no Conservative MPs at three successive General Elections. They continue to return too few for that party to command an overall majority.

Things might finally hit home when stags and hares start to wander the streets of London and other conurbations. I don't know if you have ever eaten fox, although I suppose that it is perfectly possible, and killing foxes is of course absolutely necessary if you eat lamb, chicken or eggs, or if you wear wool. But I have certainly eaten both venison and hare many, many times. Very delicious they are, too. So city-dwellers might soon come to see the most obvious practical reason to kill them. That, and deer on the roads during the rush hour.

For the time being, however, the animal of the month is the badger. Have you ever seen a domestic cat that has been attacked by a badger? And go on, badger-huggers, admit it: you thought that they were herbivorous, didn't you? They are not. They are really and truly not. But then, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you thought the same thing about foxes, or buzzards, or polar bears. In fact, I'd be vastly more surprised if you didn't.