Vermin

When Mrs Green was out walking with our dog Spike this morning he suddenly became very animated and charged off, only to the of his lead as it happens, but something had obviously caught his attention.  As they watched, two foxes appeared and trotted across the field in front of them and disappeared through a hedge.  

We don't often see foxes round here, it is heavily wooded and there are definitely foxes and badgers as is evidenced by the corpses which litter the main road, but unlike the urban fox whose nightly foray into back gardens and bins has reduced his fear of humans, our foxes are much more wary, and apart from these two our only other encounter was when I came face to face with one on my morning walk.  I don't know which of us was more surprised but without any fuss we both agreed to go our separate ways and parted on relatively good terms. 

This chance encounter set me to thinking about our attitude to wildlife in this country and indeed elsewhere. Physically we are quite a small island.  Much of what is not urban is developed land in that it has been modified and altered over the centuries in the interests of agriculture, and more latterly, especially in the South East in the interests of golf.  Google Earth is a wonderful tool and I, (sad person that I am) can spend hours revisiting my past and seeing how everything I remember has changed.  The most startling thing is the number of golf courses which have been built around the village in which I was brought up. What was once reasonably good arable land planted with wheat and barley and beans and peas and potatoes and where I earned half a crown a bag picking peas and my sister earned pocket money pulling wild oats from cereal crops, is now dotted with bunkers, not nuclear but hazardous nonetheless, especially if you aren't very good at golf.  In our landscape we have gradually removed all the totally wild areas and with them the habitats of much of our native wildlife.

One of the consequences of this is the emergence of the urban fox, who is now at home in our towns and cities.  Foxes are not popular, nor are rats or moles or mice or mink or rabbits.  Indeed they are often classified as vermin, and so in the interests of accuracy I thought I would discover what the legal definition of vermin actually is.  It turns out that there is no definition of the term in UK law. 

According to Lord Whitty in such a situation the Oxford dictionary definition should be applied. The Oxford Dictionary defines "vermin" as "Animals of a noxious or objectionable kind. Originally applied to reptiles, stealthy, or slinky animals, and various wild beasts; now, excluding in US and Australia, almost entirely restricted to those animals or birds which prey upon preserved game . . ." 

So we dismiss as vermin anything we don't like.  Basically we are persecuting creatures for being what they are.  A fox didn't choose to be a fox and yet he is persecuted for doing foxy things.  Similarly with a mink, which although destructive, was brought here by greedy men who wanted his fur and is now hunted.  Rats don't decide to be rats.  They just are.

Having said all that I don't intend to enter into a long musing about the rights and wrongs of hunting, shooting, fishing, pest-eradication and so on. 

I just think there is an interesting parallel here with what is happening in society.  The colour of someone's skin or the language they speak or the religion they follow is not a matter of choice.  In nearly every case it is a matter of birth.  Syrians are Syrians because they were born in Syria.  If they had been born in Lithuania then they would not be Syrian, they would be Lithuanian, and might look different.  People from hot countries have darker skin as a result of evolution and not because they think that particular shade suits them.  

We here in our little island are no different.  We have a long and ignoble history of religious intolerance which has only recently started to be addressed.  The default setting in this country is CofE although active members of the Anglican Church have seriously declined in numbers over recent decades.  Britain First are prime example of this phenomenon claiming to be Christian and waving crosses as they protest outside Mosques. Different Christian sects show an antipathy one to another, and not just in Northern Ireland.

On social media we see the same thing happening in the political sphere where those with whom you disagree are labelled 'scum' and often much worse.  We are back to vermin again.  People are not vermin.  People are never vermin or anything approaching it and papers such as the Daily Mail who actively promote hate are hateful for doing it.

People are often bad, in that they behave badly, sometimes very badly, but we must always remember our humanity even when they forget theirs, otherwise what is the point.  We can be vigilant, we can invoke the law and those who transgress should be punished, but often it is discovered that these vermin, these scum, are seriously disturbed individuals who feel cut off from society and to have no investment in it.  How in touch with reality is somebody who is willing to blow themselves up in support of a cause?