| My daughter Abi turned thirteen recently and as head | | | | We used to live in a farmhouse right in the middle of |
| of the family she thinks it's about time her parents | | | | one of these estates. Pheasants were as common |
| became vegetarians. She has been a convert, with | | | | as pigeons and sparrows are in town. It was not at |
| occasional lapses, for around two years. I'm certainly | | | | all unusual to see two or three elderly gents stroll |
| not against the idea. We hardly eat meat anyway; | | | | past our house, stepping stiff-legged over barbed |
| just the odd bacon sandwich and an extremely rare | | | | wire fences (ouch), with their broken shotguns |
| steak (rare in the numerical rather than the French | | | | cradled over one arm and their labradors at heel.Now, |
| culinary sense), but it would be good to lose that | | | | you might think I'm out of sympathy with the hunting |
| feeling of guilt experienced when a cow looks at you | | | | fraternity, and you'd be right, up to a point, although |
| over the fence with those mournful eyes.Actually the | | | | it's true I did a lot of fishing in my early teens, and I |
| cow is not at all sad - it's probably wondering if you | | | | once owned a beautiful .22 BSA air rifle with an oiled |
| are going to pass it some of that long green grass | | | | stock and a rifled barrel. I gave up fishing when I |
| on the other side of the fence, but the guilt is real | | | | discovered girls, and I exchanged the rifle for my |
| enough.Of course, not everybody feels that way. In | | | | first guitar and never looked back.As a young |
| another life I used to be a musician and I remember | | | | teenager, part of my reading was about the safari |
| driving to a gig with a black American blues singer | | | | hunters of Africa and India, last of a dying breed. |
| called Johnnie Mars. I pointed out some ducks which | | | | One of the most interesting of these was Jim |
| were flying low over the band bus in formation. | | | | Corbett. He became well known as a writer and his |
| Johnnie looked up and said yep, he thought they | | | | best book was probably 'The Man-Eaters of Kumaon'. |
| were mighty fine, and after a moment, 'Especially | | | | He had respect and even love for the man-eaters |
| with roast potatoes'.This was said without a trace of | | | | that he had to shoot. He was not just a hunter; he |
| irony. He told me later, with the same straight face, | | | | was also a naturalist and an early conservationalist, |
| that he was well known in East Poland and Latvia, | | | | who warned against 'the indiscriminate hunting of the |
| which reminded me irresistibly of Dorothy Parker's line | | | | tiger, which if not controlled would eventually deprive |
| about being famous in two continents - 'Greenland | | | | India of the finest of her fauna'.About this time I |
| and Iceland'.Anyway, as I said, I'd like to become a | | | | discovered two great American writers; Hemingway |
| vegetarian, but I think you have to pick the right | | | | via 'The Green Hills of Africa', written in 1933, and |
| time. It's like giving up smoking, something I finally | | | | William Faulkner through 'The Bear'. Written in 1942 as |
| managed to do ten years ago after many attempts. | | | | a long short story, 'The Bear' is Faulkner at his |
| One day, all the conditions were right and I stopped, | | | | prophetic best. It's about a group of men and boys |
| just like that.That's how I imagine it would be when | | | | who go on a hunting trip every year', and each time |
| giving up meat, although as far as I know, meat is | | | | they have to drive further to find the wilderness as |
| not addictive. There'll be no retrievals of half used | | | | the Mississippi Delta shrinks. At the time the story |
| packs of bacon from the bin, or furtive trips to the | | | | was written, conservation was not at all fashionable, |
| corner shop, ('Just going to take the dog around the | | | | nor was it twenty years later when I read it, but it |
| block, dear. Won't be long').These ruminations (isn't | | | | made me realize that there could be a link between |
| that what cows do? - Ed) were brought on by the | | | | hunting and conservation.I have no desire to hunt or |
| fact that we've recently moved house. We're now | | | | shoot any animal, but I'm hardly in a position to |
| twelve miles further north and within sight of the | | | | criticize anyone else while I still eat meat. The |
| Moray Firth. (In Scotland an estuary is called a firth, | | | | arguments in favour of hunting are not easy to |
| so for example we have the Firth of Forth - see?). | | | | refute. For instance, it's claimed that without |
| Anyway, in those few miles, we've moved out of | | | | foxhunting, farmers would quickly eradicate the fox |
| the Highlands and onto the coastal plain, which drops | | | | and that in Scotland the Red deer population would |
| gently down to the sea, about six miles away, giving | | | | soar without adequate control.Maybe, but I can't help |
| us a clear view of the few solitary cottages and | | | | thinking Oscar Wilde got it right when he wrote |
| farmhouses in the area, plus the remains of Duffus | | | | about 'The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable'. |
| castle and the Lossiemouth lighthouse.All this is very | | | | Besides, as a solution to the deer population problem, |
| different from the Highlands, with its hills and valleys, | | | | I'm for the re-introduction of the wolf, absent from |
| rough ravines and forests. Almost a different | | | | the Scottish Highlands since before Bonnie Prince |
| country, almost a different people. Before the | | | | Charlie went home to Italy. This is a serious and |
| Jacobite uprising in the 18th century and the | | | | considered proposition, now championed by the |
| subsequent destruction of the clan system, the 'wild, | | | | Green Party, and it feels right to me. It works in |
| wykked hieland men' used to swoop down onto the | | | | Montana - why not here in the Highlands? In the |
| coastal plain, steal all the cattle they could cope with, | | | | meantime, at least I've moved out of earshot of the |
| burn a few cottages and disappear back into the | | | | shotguns on the estate.James Donaldson CollinsJames |
| hills.Well, the clans are no longer a force, and instead | | | | Donaldson Collins is an artist and writer. He lives in the |
| there are large shooting estates, sometimes owned | | | | Highlands of Scotland with his wife, daughter and |
| by old established families and sometimes by wealthy | | | | three dogs. His interests are conservation, history, |
| newcomers. Clients pay the equivalent of the price of | | | | science fiction, chess and snooker. He also claims to |
| a good second hand car for a few days shooting. | | | | play guitar like a ringing a bell. |