(^148) an environmenTal hisTory of Wildlife in england
was in the uplands, where continued improvements in transport – with the
advent of the motor car and further expansion of the rail network – made
access easier. In Simmons’ words, ‘What landowners needed was a sport
which appealed to the new rich, did not interfere with existing patterns
of land use to any degree, and made money’.^52 The further expansion
and systematization of heather burning produced ever larger numbers of
birds; the new breech-loading guns ensured that ‘it was difficult for even
inexperienced financiers to miss and good shots might pile up carcases at a
very high rate’. One Yorkshire shooting moor yielded 2,843 birds on a single
day in August 1913.^53
At least until the 1920s, there was continuing pressure on keepers to
raise ever greater numbers of grouse, partridge, hare and other game. Armed
not only with efficient breech-loading shotguns, but now with an array of
poisons, they achieved this aim with considerable success. In 1911 there were
no less than 23,000 individuals recorded in the census as gamekeepers: one,
on average, for every 5.6 square kilometres of land, and significantly more
than this in the prime sporting areas of East Anglia and southern England.^54
Ravens, crows, magpies, jays, hawks, harriers, buzzards and owls continued
to be slaughtered on a vast scale. In spite of the spread of abandoned land
badger numbers failed to register any recovery, while foxes were rare, or
even eradicated altogether, where shooting was particularly important.^55
As rabbit numbers continued to rise they were increasingly treated as game
to be shot, while otter hunting, which has been practised on a casual basis
for centuries, became more popular and intensive. By the 1920s, there were
23 organized otter hunts in the country: in 1933 no less than 434 otters met
an untimely end. This said, it has been argued that – as to some extent with
foxes – hunting served to maintain a species which was otherwise widely
figure 27 Game shooting continued to be a major influence of the rural
environment of England well into the twentieth century: loading a game cart at
Studley Royal, Yorkshire, in 1901.
elle
(Elle)
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