Monday, 18 July 2022
Net Zero for otters
"It is not at all an easy thing to shoot an otter," said the parson, a dear lover of the rod and gun; "but if you have an otter here, he will harry your trout dreadfully. The only way to get a shot is to lie hid for hours. Nous would do more harm than good, freely as he takes the water. But, Arthur, you understand all that. I am sure that you are an old sportsman."
R.D. Blackmore - Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale (1882)
Different world, different imperatives. Otters competing with humans for food as well as spoiling the sport. Yet many people today seem to think their 'values' are immutable.
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4 comments:
I think it was Tim Worstall who made the point recently. Modern academia is almost universally of the opinion that values are merely relative. They are socially and historically conditioned and serve the interests of those who have power. But the same people are precisely those who claim that racism, homophobia, transportation, etc. are absolute evils.
Sam - it's an interesting inconsistency because some values clearly don't serve the interests of those who have power. Free speech, dispassionate analysis and the inherent value of scepticism all tend to undermine power.
Otters were hated where I grew up. They'd kill the salmon but eat only a small part of it.
There was an otter hunt locally.
We had a fox hunt too. Tricky balance required there: kill enough foxes to protect the lambs but not so many that you'll have no hunting next season.
Where we live now I've never seen an otter but I have seen a mink.
dearieme - we never see otters. I thought I saw one in Yorkshire a few years ago but only a glimpse so I couldn't be sure.
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