Vegans Love Carnivores

This is a repost from my article that was just published in the Guardian  newspaper: The conflict between farmers and predators has wiped out the UK's large carnivores. More must be done to improve coexistence When you take a bite from your beef burger, have you ever stopped to think about the other animals besides the cow that were killed in the making of your dinner?  It is a little known fact that the meat industry tends to be at odds with wildlife conservation .  But how can this be? The UK used to be home to vast plethora of wonderful beasts; the grey wolf, the brown bear, and the Eurasian lynx, to name but a few.  However, farmers thought that these carnivores killed livestock and so were wiped out many centuries ago .  Now, our largest land predators (besides humans, of course) are badgers and foxes – and yet the meat industry is still waging war against these two species . In other areas of Europe, carnivores are met with a similar fate...

"Failure is not an option".  That phrase has turned into a dogma amongst conservation scientists and practitioners.   Thou shalt not fail .  Because if you fail, you're seen as a failure, and as such, your funding will be cut, your job will be on the line, you'll lose all your friends, your partner will leave you, and your life  will suck forever.  Or that's at least how it appears failure is seen in this industry. But how do we ever learn how to do things?  We try, we fail, we try again, we fail again, we learn, we see how other people do it, they fail, we try again, and maybe we succeed, and we show other people how to do it.  But more importantly, we show other people how not  to do it; how not to waste your time, money and valuable resources on doing what we already tried and realised didn't work. Trial and error.  What a fabulous way of learning. It would be strange for a child to automatically know  how to build a Lego house,...

The tiger: a symbol of spirituality, fear, dominance, beauty, death, wilderness, terror and awe.  Tigers have been present in human lives ever since early Hominids wandered into their territories many tens of thousands of years ago.  And since then, human-tiger conflict has occurred, where tigers ate people or their livestock and people killed tigers and their prey.  Tigers have also been regarded as commodities: medicine, fashion, furniture and trophies (adorned on the wall either stuffed or in a photo).  Thus they appear to have great value to us, especially now they are rare.  Being rare, however, could mean their ultimate demise, as the law of economics states that the fewer items available (their supply) and their high demand raises the price, which spurs on further exploitation until extinction.  But here's a question: does it even matter if the tiger goes extinct?  Indeed, the species has been extirpated (removed) from vast tracts of it...

It is now my seventh month living in Namibia for my PhD fieldwork and my fifth on the livestock farm collecting data.  How time has flown!  When I first came to visit this farm back in July I never envisioned that I would have even stayed here (I had plans to live on another farm but that didn’t quite work out…!), let alone feel so at home here.  Always having lived in cities, towns and large villages before, I wasn’t sure how well I’d cope being  a 260 km roundtrip to the nearest town, not least because of the lack of social activities, but also the logistical constraints on buying things like food when you run out! The farmhouse I've been staying in for the last 5 months Fortunately, I fitted in spectacularly well to farm life, helping out with every aspect, from the happy and fun like playing with the dogs, to the grim and ugly like assisting with the killing and butchering of cows.  What I have seen and taken part with on this farm has opened my eye...

After being away on holiday for 11 days, I came back to my farm house tired and in desperate need of a good night’s sleep.  On the long 700 km drive home, one of the things that I was longing for was a square of the “Niki” brand (no jokes) of dark chocolate with coconut.  However, as I got back, I could not find the two bars that I was sure I’d left behind.  “Strange”, I thought, “maybe I ate it all or took it with us on the camping trip and forgot”.  I was sure, though, that I had left these bars of chocolate on my shelf.  I decided to look for them in the morning when I was more with-it. As I got ready for bed, I went to turn on my small battery-operated bedside lamp.  Weirdly, it was not there.  “Maybe it has fallen from the table onto the floor”, I guessed, and made a mental note to also have a search for it the next day. Alas I never will get to eat this lovely chocolate bar Morning came and I went on a search for my missing belonging...

I've just got back from a two-week trip around Namibia (and briefly, Zambia) seeing the sights and relaxing with my boyfriend.  One of our last stops was to be the Cape Cross Seal Colony , which harbours thousands of Cape seals who raise their pups along the coastline.  Although I had been forewarned about the smell of these marine mammals, I had not quite prepared myself for the sickening stench emanating from the entire area.  As soon as we got out of the car, I nearly gagged; this was a pungent, decomposing, musky smell that I have never before encountered. A huge bull protects his harem Even still, I was excited to be there, especially as it was pup season.  As we got closer however, I begun to realise that part of the smell was in fact coming from the pups, or at least, the hundreds of dead ones scattered across the beach.  Presumably, they were stillborn, crushed by the thousands of other seals all fighting for a prime space, or their mother had not c...

During this last week, a friend from CCF and I took a trip to Etosha National Park, the flagship nature reserve in Namibia.  It is famous for its huge salt pan that is over 100 km wide at some points, but also famous for the wildlife that lives there.  I had never been before so was very excited to go, especially as there is a lack of wildlife on and near my farm (partly due to it being poached out, potentially by the refugees at the camp just 15 km away….). On the day of departure Anja was packing some items in the back of my car and found a scorpion next to the camp food box!  She managed to get it out and I took a snap of it before we released it back into the wild away from our sleeping bags and mattresses – didn’t want to get a shocking surprise when getting into bed that night! We arrived into the park at lunch time and had a brief drive around before heading to one of the rest camps as it was far too hot for both us and any wildlife to be out at that t...