Perthshire Courier - Thursday 18 February 1841
11 foxes
198 Wild Cats
246 Martin cats
106 Polecats
301 Stots and Weasels
67 Badgers
48 Otters
78 House Cats, going wild
27 White tailed Sea Eagles
15 Golden Eagles
18 Osprey, or Fishing Eagles
98 Blue Hawks, or Peregrine Falcons
11 Hobby Hawks
275 Kites, commonly called salmon-Tailed Gledes
5 Marsh Harriers, or Yellow-Legged Hawks
63 Gos Hawks
285 Common Buzzards
371 Rough-Legged Buzzards
3 Honey Buzzards
462 Kestrels, or Red Hawks
78 Merlin Hawks
83 Hen Harriers, or Ring-tailed Hawks
6 Jer Falcon Tag-feathered Hawks
9 Ash-coloured Hawks or Long Blue-tailed do
1431 Hooded or Carrion Crows
475 Ravens
35 Horned Owls
71 Common Fern Owls
3 Golden Owls
8 Magpies
And this was great work carried out to clear things for grouse hunting. The eradication of one species after another and this was going on in every other hunting territory. Anything not wanted was called by the hunting term “vermin” and killed.
By the 1860s the Old fox types were gone (note only 1 foxes killed on the above list imp[lying they were rare) as were the wild cats -note almost 200 killed on this estate which would have been adults as well as kittens. In fact in accounts from the 1830s it was noted that Golden Eagles were very rare as were wild cats and foxes were getting scarcer and the red squirrel was wiped out -they are not even listed here.
As for domestic cats “gone wild” it needs to be pointed out that there was an “in joke” about how game keepers always had the “best fertiliser” for their fruit and vegetable patches -domestic cats and dogs that wandered within shooting range of a game keeper were shot and disposed of pet dogs wandering a few feet from owners and off-the-lead were openly shot in front of the owners who could do little. So for a bounty on every animal and a race to se who could kill more on every straying pet was money in the pocket.
Despite noting all of the species declining and becoming rarer the ‘sports’ of the day still killed after all they could import more squirrels, more deer, more hares, thousands more foxes and even wild cats so they had a good hunt and shoot.
I would like to write that this was all in the past but it is not. A quarter million badgers slaughtered over fake science as recognised by many and not just in the UK. Red squirrels in commercial forestry are still trapped, snared and shot and hundreds of foxes are shot ‘for fun’ each week across the UK by ‘sportsmen’. Re-introduced birds of prey are still being killed as are hedgehogs in game-bird areas.
Oh, and this is all information from online news sources or sites and the great British ‘animal loving’ public sit back but, just one “lonely sheep” and thousands (undoubtedly many meat eaters) kick up a fuss until something is done.
The UK -The Blood Red Island
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