Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade  I am always suprised when people get upset by a small group of people chasing a single Fox (ok poor thing) when very little sympathy is aroused by 50 protected Daubentons Bats being murdered (they are after all mammals) or the fact that 2.5 tons of eels are fished from a water and the following year less than 20 kilos are caught from the same water,there are
double standards at work,if it is cuddly and can be anthropomorphised everyone is keen to protect it if it is a fish which is the main food source of many more ( Otters ,heron )animals
it is ignored. bats keep many thousands of insects down but are ignored by the ooh-ing and aah-ing wildlifers
Lets try to be more even handed in our support |
I think it's not so much ignorance but lack of awareness that creates conditions where any one group of animals suffer at human hands.
Fox hunting has a high profile in any media group whereas eels and bats(who as you say aren't considered cuddly) get virtually no media coverage.
This is why it is important that sites like this highlight their situation.
I sometimes wish that,from a very early age, children are taught to respect and love all things wild, from the lowly worm or slug to the nightime creatures like bats and indeed the insects that are considered dirty or scary by parents.
My own parents were not taught the importance of animals in ecology, therefore it was ok to exploit them. Now I'm sort of teaching them where every creature 'fits' in and why they are important and even they will put a fly out if possible rather than splatting it.
I think things will change, albeit slowly, in favour of some of our less cuddly critters. We've just got to start from the young up and the old down. The cure may come when we meet in the middle.
Julie