NATURE—AND MAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 1 February 1936, Page 9

NATURE—AND MAN

/ “ETHICS OF SPORT” A BROAD-MINDED REVIEWER „ (Edited TiyiLeo Fanning) , A The. word “sppyt” covers .a multitude of .is much to admire iij ilie. eddy*. awj' conduct of the best sportsmen, lmt' ln’bre, to condemn in trie callous .selfishness, of some _ shoot-, ists.. Til? '.subject of “Sport CqptryJ” is well reviewed in the December issue of Aya'tujnj, Magazine” by Stephen Haweis, whose.,comments will command the'respect..,of genuine sportsmen. The ethics of, spqrt.are still, somewhat undefined, writes Mr Haweis. A great, hunter once, told me that lie would, feel ashamejd to shoot rabbits and' partridges,, because the animal

had no chance. He shot big game only because as lie said, “if I miss the animal gets his chance.” He never took more than one native with him, to carry an extra gun. and often enough he went entirely alone into the bush of Somaliland. It is noteworthy that most great hunters give up sport as tliey grow older; it is an evidence of a civilised soul, one that lias become civil through experience. .’ THE HUNTING INSTINCT Mali is a hunter born, continues Mr Haweis. In ancient times lie killed for food and thought little about sport or its ethics. His pre-occupation was to bring home the dinner or go hungry, and, as in Africa to-day, animals were “liyama” —meat and nothing mote. Sport is the result of applying mental restrictions to the science of killing animals. It creates right and wrong and should bestow some sense of dignity upon what otherwise is only the indulgence of a primitive lust. Sport is the morality of slaughter, a

quality which men almost succeeded in introducing to warfare until the desire for efficiency made results the sole criterion of right. It may he that Time will slowly eliminate sports as it is understood to-day, but however milch we wish for the conservation of wildlife, hating cruelty as men once hated heresy, we must face the fact that sport is held to he right and legitimate in our time. Our ambition must therefore lie to increase the civilised sentiment that there must he some quarter given to the quarry; that because sonic »f us have invented instruments of wholesale death, it is no reason why they should he used for sport or even profit. True sport keeps alive and regulates, at the same time, the hunting spirit without wliiclKtlic average man seems unable to exist. There is something wrong about the person whose tenderheartedness becomes maudlin: perhaps it is in exact ratio to the meaner man who is utterly indifferent, to animal suffering.

CALL FOR GOOD SENSE The rules of sport must lie dictated bv good sense. At least we should not kill more than we can use and it should he remembered that when the Government regulates the “hag” of a day, it concedes the maximum to the greediest of its citizens. The game of golf was defined by somebody as “the art of putting a very small ball into a very small hole with instruments totally unfit for the purpose.” But therein consists the sport, which is a contest with diilieiiHv Bushes, clothing and the back of his neck are what are easiest for a beginner to catch with a fly rod, but a real angler would rather lure a troiii with a bunch of feathers on a hook than snare him with an angle-worm, which is far better bait. Skill with a gun comes from being called upon suddenly to use it by the unexpected appearance of game. To kill halftame, hand-fed birds, accustomed to food in a farmer’s yard, or when they are terrified and driven before the guns, is little more sport than to kill canaries with a hammer. What is difficult is to he desired; the _ skill emphasised, and even something risked, to make killing respectable by a civilised mind. Let us admit the savage m ourselves by cultivating his skill, for the man who can shoot a bird or a fish with a bow and arrow is still doing something which it is difficult altogether to despise. It is too much to hope that sport will ever deign to be useful. If the sportsmen must kill without control, it would be as well if he would kill the enemies of the human ''ace against which we have never been entirely successful. “THE BOY IS FATHER TO THE MAN” In various ways the modern hoy is “father to the man” much more than he was when that line was written a century or so ago. For example, in study of nature many young folk arc oiviirn a helpful lead to their parents. This‘subject is helpfully discussed by Charles H. Gable in an article m “Nature Magazine” under the appropriate headings of “Conservation and [he Boy. Building a Sane. Intelligent, Sympathetic View of Wild-Life.. * ' Gable tells of a successful experiment in nature-study during the past four vears in a public primary school of Texas. U.S.A. Here arc some interest'"•‘We. made a little headway ami many. .mistake^,.in our first efforts. Real* progress, however, dated from the moment we fully comprehended the thing we were trying to establisn was an emotional attitude and not an mtel'eotiial development. The keystone of that emotional attitude, we discovered, was “Friendship.” “Whenever you create in a hoy an attitude which prompts a smile o* friendly greeting as he meets a little lizard;' or looks up with a grin ot welcome to the old gander leading his flock to the Southland, and mutters to himself: “Hullo, Old Top! Y'ou have <riven the hunters the slip tins fat. I’m betting you’ll make it the rest of the way. Good luck!” you have created a conversationist. ... . “Will that hoy stand placidly and watch some fellow smash lus lizard friendV Not once in a thousand vears. If you know hoys, you know they will fight as long as they can stand for consideration and protection of their friends. “We eliminated from our programme every element which might hinder the development of this friendly attitude: Hated written examinations, drudgery of notebook keeping, dictatorial discipline, fear of wild things, preaching. “It is a great satisfaction to us that this programme is really effective. Dozens of parents come to us tliankng 'us for the happy change in the attitude of their boy towards wildlife. Tliey laughingly tell us they have Nature discussions in the home for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “This continuous enthusiasm or the bovs has in a wonderful way stimulated the interest of the parents. Parents respond to their children as they respond to no outsider. A discussion of conservation read in a magazine is interesting, hut impersonal. The child’s plea to protect the li' es of his little friends becomes a vital, personal matter about which Dad is eoiug to do something. “Conservation, to date, has been concerned almost exclusively with the legal protection of wild-life —the mechanics of conservation. What has been done to cultivate love for wildlife the soul of conservation? Can victory he expected from a purely mechanical ■process without the emotional support Of a soul?”