An article in the series "Crying for Standards"
According to UK commissioner to the International Whaling Commission C.I. Llewelyn, the commercial nature of Norway's whale hunt means that it must meet with standards for humane killing as applied in British slaughterhouses. Yet in the commercial Scottish deer hunt, as in most British hunts, there are no regulations protecting the welfare of the animals.
The UK has taken a high profile in the debate on humane killing in the IWC, for example initiating the Humane Killing Workshop held in Dublin last week. This issue has provided the government with a golden opportunity to appease the aggressive animal welfare and rights groups that are on its back over the issues of bloodsports and factory farming. It is on the advice of these organisations that the UK has decided to oppose the resumption of commercial whaling on the grounds that no humane method of killing whales exists nor, in the words of John Gummer, "is ... about to be on the horizon".
By sticking to this position, the UK is hoping that it can continue to deflect attention from the total absence of humane killing regulations in British hunts. In its attempt to do so, Llewelyn declares in a letter to the High North Alliance that the British government "do not accept that comparisons (of commercial whaling) with hunting, particularly recreational hunting, are valid." He continues: "In our view, whaling is a commercial operation and welfare standards should be broadly comparable to those that are required for the commercial slaughter of terrestrial animals."
Yet the Scottish deer hunt is irrefutably commercial. Last year the hunt yielded approximately 1,500 tonnes of venison, of which 80% was exported to Germany and the Netherlands. Money is also generated by the sale of hunting permits by landowners to trophy hunters. According to the Scottish Office, the total contribution from the sale of meat and permits to the Scottish economy comes to about £6 million a year. "Then you have the drip down factors," says Colin Mclean of the Red Deer Commission, referring to the other services paid for by the hunters. "The deer hunt is important to the economy of the Highlands."
In comparison, the dockside value of the Norwegian minke whale hunt in 1994 was £1.5 million, according to Norges Råfisklag, the organisation responsible for overseeing sales of fresh marine produce. No meat went for export.
The deer hunt also wins in terms of the numbers of animals involved. The Red Deer Commission offers advice on how many deer it considers desirable to take, but no quotas are set and the final decision is up to individual landowners. This system resulted in the shooting of an estimated 57,300 deer in the 1993/94 season. In Norway, by contrast, the government-set quota for whales in 1994 was 301, of which 279 were caught. The quota for this year is just 232.
Stark contrasts also exist in terms of animal welfare regulations. Minke whaling in Norway is strictly regulated by the government. All gunners are required to take a course every year to ensure they are familiar with any changes in regulations and recommendations for the hunt. They have to pass a test to verify their skill as marksmen. There are strict standards governing the equipment that can be used in the hunt, and each one of the 30 vessels taking part is inspected before it sails. There are also government inspectors aboard every vessel, each one a trained veterinarian, who are responsible for ensuring regulations governing the killing process are observed. Every kill since 1989 has been recorded and the statistics made public annually.
Back in Scotland, meanwhile, the only regulation that could conceivably have arisen out of animal welfare considerations is that the hunt is closed during the summer calving season. All one needs to go out and shoot a deer is a rifle licence (readily available to anyone without a record of violent crime) and a permit from the landowner. No data are compiled indicating whether the hunt is humane or not.
Mclean asserts that the hunt "is humane indeed," but concedes that it is an opinion based solely on his personal knowledge of the participants. "They are professionals," he states.
Trophy Hunters
Yet even if Mclean's trust is well-founded, the professional gamekeepers to whom
he refers only shoot hinds and calves. The stags are left to the trophy hunters,
who could be inexperienced, inept, or simply lacking the appropriate ethical
attitude. Of the 70,000 animals shot in the 1992/93 season, 20,000 were stags.
According to Mclean, each trophy hunter is accompanied by an experienced
hunter who will finish off wounded animals and offer general advice. But there
are no regulations or laws requiring this.
Further breaking down the 1992/93 bag, 33,000 hinds were shot and close to 20,000 calves. The high number of calves reflects the fact that they are still suckling when the season starts, and guidelines from the Red Deer Commission require that if you shoot a hind accompanied by a calf, the calf is shot also. But again, this is not governed by any legislation.
In the Norwegian minke whale hunt, no minke whales are accompanied by calves. In the 1994 commercial hunt, 53% of the whales caught were females and of these 68% were pregnant. The corresponding figures for the scientific catch were 65% and 24%. In the deer hunt, it is not known what percentage of hinds are pregnant when shot, but given the close coincidence between the hunting and the mating seasons, it is reasonable to assume the figure would be high.
No Records
There are no records available to assess whether kills in the Scottish deer hunt are
humane, but if the hunts for reindeer and elk in Norway are any guideline, the
time to death would be longer than in Norwegian minke whaling.
In the 1994 minke whale hunt, the average time to death was 190 seconds, while preliminary records compiled for the elk hunt over the period 1975-95 show that the animals took an average of 12 minutes to die. Figures on the deer hunt in the US show that an average of 24% of animals are shot but not retrieved. It is not possible to judge whether this figure is mirrored in Scotland for a variety of reasons; the openness of the terrain, for example, will affect the number of animals that are wounded and then escape.
It can be nonetheless be concluded unequivocally that the British government totally neglects the issue of humane killing standards when it comes to the hunting of deer. And "neglect" must surely be the right word, or John Major would not have been able to tell parliament with a straight face that "no other government, in Britain or abroad, can match the record of this Conservative government on animal welfare."
The Red Deer Commission's Mclean says that there are no signs of animal welfare regulations on the horizon for the deer hunt, and he does not believe any are needed.
See also: "Deer Cull to Conserve British Birds"