Tuesday 1 April 2008

Wild Won't Do

The justification for putting farm cattle on Blacka Moor is supposed to be that grazing animals help to stop the place becoming densely wooded. We have a wildlife trust who have come up with this supposed 'solution', not that anyone's explained satisfactorily what's wrong with woods. Well now it must be blindingly obvious even to SWT that genuine wildlife are doing just that anyway and doing it much more naturally, much less intrusively and without any of the disadvantages that cattle bring. The deer, now seen by many people, do not need barbed wire or supervision and management plans, and they create no erosion problems on the soft paths. Soon SWT will be putting on the moor their cattle for the second year. As with last year the atmosphere changes, the ground beneath one's feet changes ('mind where you tread!') and the real wildlife immediately takes second place to the imported beasts more at home as semi-cute characters in a kiddies' programme.

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