The British Prime Minister has said firmly that hunting, presumably meaning chiefly fox-hunting, is definitely to be banned. Speaking on the BBC's Question Time, he left no doubt, wrote the political correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, that "the sport's days are numbered". It's not so long since a huge Countryside March arrived in London to make a protest. We'll see if this second attempt by the Labour government succeeds. One fear expressed is that, with foxhunting banned, the government might dare to move on shooting and angling. Unlikely, most think, but you never know. Anyway, the employment implications of a hunting ban are so big, apparently, for the British horse industry, not to mention the unemployment caused among those who breed and look after hounds which could be alarming among people in the countryside. We will see. After all, Ireland might benefit from hunter-tourists. Hunting or shooting or hooking an animal to death seems indefensible - unless it is for the pot or the pan. Vegetarianism may be increasing, but most of us eat animals and birds which are intensively grown and which cause some disquiet - the hens in crippling cages, the pigs in close confinement. A fish caught in a river or lake is somewhat different. (So far this year, nobody has brought a piece of salmon or a couple of good trout as a surprise. One young man, salmon-fishing, missed a couple of sea trout and almost had two salmon on land. He left, to see his successor on the bank land two of the latter.)
Many anglers enjoy the windings of the river, the pools and the shallow runs and generally Nature around them as much as the catch. "No, didn't land anything; but you should have seen the bushes covered with sloes." Shooting small birds dismays some people. There is much more of this in France than here and their range of victims is broader. In Ireland, one of the great tests of shooting prowess is to get a good "bag" of snipe and, more particularly, of woodcock, that devious bird. The snipe adds so much to summer evenings with its nostalgic drumming sound. Mount Dalton comes to mind.
But, as to eating, we sometimes take a superior attitude to the Continentals, and especially the French because they eat birds which we do not. For example, a French magazine La Chasse had a full-page "recipe of the month" on roast thrushes. You take out the gizzard but leave the liver and entrails, which melt in the cooking and give a certain flavour, etc. Probably we do much the same with woodcock. Blair's programme is worth watching. Our own Wildlife Bill another day.