Bang Bang, You Shot Me Down

Bang bang. The hunting season started yesterday. It lasts until January. There are apparently 26,000 licensed hunters in the Balearics; that sounds like an awful lot. As of yesterday, there were any number of birds, such as thrushes, starlings and partridges, as well as rabbits (and quite possibly other species) keeping a beady eye out for the sight of a long barrel. At least there is some control. A hunter cannot just go and blast everything out of the skies or off the land, but it may well come as a surprise that the likes of the partridge are included in this annual cull, and some of it is just that - a cull, as a proportion of the hunters are so-called preservation hunters.

To what extent the non-preservation hunters are actually making a contribution to planned wildlife management, I am not altogether sure. At a guess, I would suggest it is not that great a contribution. The hunting of wild birds sounds like a sport of the landed classes, as it is elsewhere, though here I wouldn't be so certain; it is still not that long ago that much of Mallorca was essentially rural with therefore rural pursuits. Hunting is as much a tradition as the fiesta; there is an annual hunters' "fiesta" which alternates its venue across the island. Another target of the hunter's gun, the mountain goat, is said to be of superior quality here and one that it is hoped will also attract a certain tourist, one with a rifle.

But one cannot put Mallorcan hunting into the same class as the hoorays who might pitch up for the glorious twelfth. Apart from anything else, there are no hoorays as such here; well, not among the Mallorcans at any rate. Of the older Mallorcans, I know of some who, wealthy, are also what one might describe as the salt of the earth; they shoot, they ride horses, the rural pursuit is still a part of their lives, as it would have been that of their fathers and grandfathers.

Nevertheless, not everyone is happy with the hunting. And up pops, once more, our old friends, the environmental pressure group GOB. Barely a day passes it seems without GOB making a pronouncement or a denunciation about something or other. Much as I may incline towards the environmental cause, my take on it is essentially pragmatic; GOB's is if it moves or if it grows or if it's about to be built upon or interfered with in some way by mankind, it should be left alone. It's why I referred the other day to a certain Carlism in the environmental movement here. The desire, it seems, is to revert to the pure and natural state; it is a dogmatic stance.

The power that GOB appears to now exert suggests that it might be brought into the governmental process. I doubt very much if the group would fall for that one. Once formally politicised, its members would be pressured themselves into being somewhat less one-eyed and one-issued; they wouldn't go for it. Far better to be unofficially politicised and to lob the enviro grenades (harmless ones and no doubt biodegradable, to boot) onto the political or commercial or even the environmental agenda, if this last one doesn't sound a tad contrary. For GOB has raised objections as to what is going on at the Son Real finca near to Can Picafort, the one that is managed by the sustainable development foundation, who, one would imagine, wears its environmental badge with pride. GOB would beg to differ, as hunting for birds, specifically thrushes, is to be permitted on the finca. The pressure group believes, not perhaps without some justification, that a preservation area should not be one for the extermination of the very migratory birds that it attracts and which are to the fore in the environmental argument for such preservation in the first place. GOB also reckons that tourists (yes, all those thousands upon thousands who don't come) will find it a mite peculiar that they have to dodge a hunter's aim as they are targetting the very same birds with a binocular lens. (Actually, that's sort of what is reckoned; it's not what has been said in those words exactly.)

GOB may well have an argument, but the sounds of gunshot I now hear are coming from where? Unless the sounds are travelling an awfully long distance, they are emanating from Albufera, the other and more important nature-preservation park in the area; as they have since I have been a neighbour. Even were they not, the problem with GOB is that it just can't keep its gob shut. Its pronouncements are so regular that they start to become tiresome; the group is in danger also of crying wolf (as opposed, naturally, to hunting wolf). What may have escaped GOB's attention is the fact that if it is deemed necessary to cull and to hunt, where better to do it than in areas which attract birds. The hunters are unlikely to be wandering through the middles of towns taking potshots at a passing thrush. It may indeed seem strange, to GOB, that they hunt birds in Son Real, but for the group to now make it an international issue by informing those in countries with tourists to Mallorca is taking it all a bit far. GOB devotes too much energy to hunting for new battles; these get to a stage where those who might otherwise have sympathy switch off, and so they become counter-productive. Just a little less gobby, please.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Commodores - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFHbGuSRAwg. Today's title - the one-time other half of an Irish-sounding fellow.

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