http://www.airgunshooting.co.uk AIRGUN WORLD 23‘
HARDMAN’S HUNTING
»
N
ature lover’, I see those words passed
around a lot, but depending who you talk
to, it can have two very different meanings. I
see myself as a nature lover. I’ve always loved
it, even as a child, catching caterpillars in a jar,
or frogs in a bucket. I’ve been around nature
all of my life. As I grew older, catching small
creatures slowly morphed into the taking of
larger ones, and so my life as an airgun hunter
began. I didn’t set out to hunt because I hated
animals, I started hunting because I love them.
This month, I have been informed by none
other than the BBC’s Chris Packham, that I am
not a nature lover at all. Not only that, but if I
continue with my love of the countryside and
hunting, I could even be a criminal, thanks to
Natural England withdrawing the general
licences last month, which meant it was illegal
to shoot all birds, even pest species.
I’m not really one for politics, but all this has
really got me thinking. You see, I’m friends with
some bird-watching, RSPB types, and they are
nature lovers, too. We are the same really; they
use a camera and I use a rifle, but our general
views on nature are more or less aligned, so
the rubbish Chris Packham spouts is a bit of a
mystery to me.
A few days before the general licences were
revoked, I was asked by an RSPB member, an
avid bird-watcher, twitcher, whatever they like
to be known as, if I would spend some time in
their bird-watching hide, to kill some corvids,
particularly magpies, that were threatening the
birds’ nesting sites. Oh my goodness! I hear
you shout. An RSPB member asking a hunter
to kill something? Well, yes, because they too
love nature, and they understand that certain
species need controlling from time to time,
especially to protect other species.JUST NATURE?
I can already hear the cries of Mr Packham,
telling me, ‘Isn’t that just nature? One specieskilling another?’ and under normal
circumstances I would agree wholeheartedly. If
a sparrowhawk came through and took a
songbird then yes, not only would I consider
that more than fair, I would be slightly
awestruck having witnessed it. The difference
is, magpies are a human-induced problem.
When I was a child, magpies were country
birds, and a rare sight. These days, they are
everywhere because they hide in towns andvillages, nesting in gardens, industrial areas,
places where we cannot control them. The
modern world is so skewed on its views of
‘nature’ that any suggestion of controlling these
major pests results in so much uproar that they
have found a safe haven, untouchable, andmultiplied far beyond any ‘natural’ population
levels. As a result of that, the pressure on
songbirds has increased dramatically.
A group of magpies 20 strong going through
a hedgerow killing every chick, destroying every
nest and eating every egg they find is NOT
nature, that’s a man-made problem. Society’s
encroachment into nature has created it, and
so it needs a man-made solution to redress the
balance.No animal lover would stand by and do
nothing as our native songbirds are destroyed.
You see, those types of ‘nature lovers’ want to
sit and stare at it out of a window, from afar.
They think they know nature because they look
AT it. they do not exist IN it. They believe“No animal lover would stand by and do nothing
as our native songbirds are destroyed”
The rested shots
at 10 yards were
a formality.Seeing, without being seen
is the perfect scenario.I spread the bait
liberally, hoping it
would be too much for
the magpies to resist.