An Environmental History of Wildlife in England 1650-1950

(^136) an environmenTal hisTory of Wildlife in england
in 1824, of the Society for the Protection of Animals, later (from 1840)
the Royal Society. Two years earlier, in 1822, the Act to Prevent Cruel
Treatment of Cattle had been passed, and the new society lobbied hard to
extend its terms to other creatures. In 1835, the Cruelty to Animals Act
did indeed extend protection to dogs and sheep, prohibited bear-baiting
and cock fighting, and in various other ways sought to promote the more
humane treatment of domestic animals. But neither this piece of legislation,
nor the subsequent Cruelty to Animals Act of 1849, was concerned with
the preservation of wildlife. Those animals with which humans had a close
working association were regarded in a different way to those which existed
in the world of nature. But attitudes were changing, and for reasons which
should by now be clear. As Hudson, writing about London, observed in the
1890s: ‘It is a fact, although perhaps not a quite familiar one, that those who
reside in the metropolis are more interested in and have a kindlier feeling for
their wild birds than is the case in rural districts’.^125
Conclusion
The environment of England was directly affected, in innumerable ways, by
the agricultural and industrial revolutions. But these great transformations
also had important indirect impacts, of a social and intellectual character,
which likewise shaped the fortunes of wildlife. Parks and gardens covered
ever larger areas of ground, forming portals through which a flood of
new organisms were brought to these shores. The consolidation of large
landed estates led to an upsurge in tree planting, with important long-term
ecological effects; but, together with improvements in firearms technology,
also ushered in new forms of recreational hunting which were associated
with catastrophic declines in a number of birds and mammal species. At the
same time, a population increasingly divorced from agricultural production
engaged with nature in new ways, observing, recording and classifying
plants and animals but also collecting them, sometimes to the point of local
extinction.