“The Government’s determination to allow beef bulls to run loose on public footpaths . . . .”
- C. Caulfield, New Scientist 30 July.
On reading that I got a mental picture of cartoonist Giles’s grandmother leaping over a hedge, pursued by a raging bull.
The Conservation lobby is now a force to be reckoned with during discussions on the Wildlife & Countryside Bill. But, when less important issues like Beef bulls are argued about at the expense of the desperate plight of many of our native plants and animals (and the threatened habitats that support them) – it enables those who oppose all measure of control over land to discredit the Conservationists. Maybe Conservation organisations need to prioritise and choose their battlegrounds?
The Farmer’s Guardian doesn’t hold back . . “All the farmer-haters are jumping on the band-wagon, the long-haired, unwashed, sandal brigade in its constant search for something to protest about . . . .” etc.
With hindsight, it was a fundamental mistake for politicians to try resolving problems relating to greater access to farmland, alongside issues relating to habitat preservation. Voluntary groups are proud of having made Conservation a political issue, but this is already having repercussions. Upland farmers in North Wales, many embracing Welsh Nationalism, seek to limit access across their land to holiday-makers. The tradition of mass trespass by the landless peasants may be part of our folk-lore, but many Welsh farmers now ask – ‘Who today is master and who is servant?’ Today’s landless peasants arrive in the summer driving new VW camper vans, bought from urban levels of income. Having worked their 40 hour week they leave the polluted cities seeking fresh country air.
But let’s get back to the Red Herring. Imagine a Civil Servant in London negotiating to ban dairy bulls from fields traversed by public footpaths ( a sensible move), it probably seems logical to ban all bulls and have done with it. Logical but unworkable. For to state what is apparently not widely understood, there are bulls and there are bulls. There are
Dairy bulls (Fresian, Jersey) of sneaky and uncertain temperament who no-one in their right mind would go near, and there are recognised Beef bulls (Devon, Galloway, Hereford) of a placid and benign disposition. Personally, given the choice of letting the children amble though our Hereford herd, or sending them across the main road to our village ship, I’d choose the herd every time.
Over our boundary hedge, I see the neighbour’s 15 hectare permanent pasture and a splendid herd of suckler cows and calves grazing away the Summer days, accompanied by a stately Hereford sire known as Edward. Every day he does his rounds, scenting any female about to come on heat (when she’s said to be ‘bulling’). You’ll see old Edward quietly grazing beside this one cow all day then, at the exact moment she’s ready, he’s there to serve her. The only time our elderly neighbour needs to get involved is if a cow falls ill and maybe needs the Vet.
Across the middle of this field runs a public footpath. Imagine a law suddenly bans all beef bulls from such a field? They could maybe slap a double post and rail fence down the middle of the field, an eye-sore even if affordable, and the ungrazed path would soon become overgrown as walkers pass this way only two three times a year. They’d have to pen Edward near the farmhouse, watch out several times a day for any ‘bulling’ cow and then bring her to the bull. Easy enough with a milking herd which comes in twice a day anyway, but for an elderly couple to individually round up a wayward bulling cow and drive her away from the herd (when every
instinct tells her to stay) – impossible. So they’d join the exodus away from beef and let a contractor plough up those grasses, herbs and wild flowers and plant barley instead.
But should they really be faced with such a choice simply for a few holidaymakers to walk the field occasionally. Not that many would. Who’d choose to stroll across a barley field when walkers yearn for rolling pastures, buttercups and foxgloves, unkempt winding hedges and shady broadleaved trees? So beware ill-considered legislation which inadvertently speeds the destruction of the traditional landscape we love.
Many of our native species, and the habitats they depend on, are perilously near extinction, yet this appalling fact has been lost in the general melée, and out of the resulting shambles emerges a toothless piece of legislation. The Conservation lobby has proved that it is a force to be reckoned with – is it too much to ask the various pressure groups to unite and focus on saving endangered species from extinction?