Doesn't this make humans the true vermin?

 

The arctic wolf is similar, if not a related species to the British wolf hunted into extinction

It is interesting how often you hear or read the word "vermin" being used. This usually indicates someone involved in bloodsports or a supporter of said 'sport'.  

Foxes are not and have never been officially classed as "vermin" in the United Kingdom -again, only hunts and their supporters use the term and it is odd that they hunted Old British fox types to extinction -supposedly their purpose (as a defence after 1900 when thinghs got a little hot for hunts legally in courts). So why, aim achieved, did hunts import thousands of foxes each year  to continue their hunting 'fun'? Oops! I let a clue out there.

The Old foxes were gone by the 1860s and after that even the imported red foxes faced several near extinctions -the same way the red squirrel did but it, too, was replaced by European stock.

The forests and woods that once covered England (as an example) were cut down or burnt down specifically for one purpose; the get wolves (even ones causing no problems) out into the open to hunt and kill and as with foxes later some lords forbade the killing of all wolves as they needed them for 'sport'.  Obviously any other animals flushed out were a good bit of 'sport' -lynx, boar, etc. Our forestry has never recovered and even now some planted as replacement forests are marked for commercial gain.

The list of what humans wiped out by the end of the "Golden Age of Hunting" (19th century) would take a few pages to list. Just shooting something and walking off to find something else to shoot. Seals, every and any bird, literally every thing on land from reptiles and amphibians and mammals of all types. The Bloodbath Age" is very well written about in books from the period by "naturalist sportsmen" and others -it ended the true Scottish wildcat by the 1860s (a notabvle decade since that is when British red squirrels and Old fox types met their demise). Hares were imported into areas then "devoid of any" and in other areas deer were imported from Europe.

We have seen wild canids shot, poisoned, clubbed ansd snared into extinction -the Falkland Islands wolf, Hokkaido wolf -it goes on and on.

And then the successes; wolves reintroduced and protected until either hunters or farmers money (bribes) made politicians decide that, yes, some could be "harvested" and on the occasions when far more than any licences allowed were killed.. "oh hum!" Nothing. We have seen scandinavian countries begin slaughtering wolves to a point that it is doubtful that some populations will be abler to continue.

In the United States the Wyoming state government in the 1940s deliberately spread mange with the sole purpose of killing wolbves, coyotes and foxes that were not being killed off through shooting fast enough.  Whether other states did similar is open to debate but you see mange in the United States -thank Wyoming.

Honshu wolf -another driven to extinction as a "potential" not actual threat to livestock

Wolves are reintroduced or 'protected' and begin to recover in numbers and then money comes into it -shooting licences. Seeing a flat bed truck full of deade wolves shot and killed on one hunt should sicken any normal person and the two gurning morons standing proudly by the corpses really ought to be shamed. 

However, these people tend to troll wildlife groups. Recently someone on a group posted a trail cam image and asked whether it was a wolf or coyote. One person responded "Its a waste of oxygen" and another "I'll be taking care of that" (shooting it). Interesting both commentors Face Book pages show smiling m iddle class men with gas guzzling vehicles -and a wolf is "a waste of oxygen"? What do group owners/moderators do? Nothing.

Falkland Islands wolf

We have seen the return of the jackal to parts of Western Europe as well as wolves and how troublesome are they? Well, the fact that most people (including farmers) had no i8dea they were in their ought to be a clue. The return of these canids was embraced by everyone...until a farmer (fully compensated) lost a sheep that was going to be carted off to be killed anyway. Suddenly that old "they will wipe out our livestock" screaming started even though they are not wiping out livestock. It's the "potential" and that is what saw the Tasmanian wolf (Thylacine) wiped out. The Hokkaido wolf wiped out. The Falkland Island wolf wiped out -all as "potential live stock threats.

Re-introduce or protect existing populations then kill them off again -it is an endless cycle and all because politicians have no backbones but do like the ..uh... campaign contributions.  

We see, at this moment, the UK fox populaytion is declining rapidly. Even the hunts that still exist say so and their solution to 'save' foxes is that full blown hunting must return to....kill off more foxes? Someone's brain really farted while thinking that one up. Foxes are shot nightly for 'fun' by people who claim to be 'sportsmen' and why? The law says foxes can be dealt with if a threat to livestock so why are foxes simp-ly walking through an empty field killed?  Foxes on the outskirts of towns and cities where there is no livestock are killed -killing cubs is also, apparently, 'fun'.  

Why are the police not investigating all of this since these people proudly post their photos online and are notede as "a credit to the sport'? Because the law has no backbone and politicians do notr give a toss. 

"Just foxes"

No actual photo or taxidermy example can be found of the Hong Kong fox that was hunted to extinction by the early 1970s by colonial hunts. Thjis is a relative from Southern China

Despite all the examples of extinctions and the environmental damage humans are knowingly doing while politicians use words and phrases such as "an environmental war" and "environmental protection and restoration" they are thinking of how good they look in the press and media -a good example being Bristol City Council- they are taking "contributions" from developers to build over green spaces of which there are a few while brown sites of which their are many just rotting away. Developers want the "nice view" for potenmtial sales having destroyed a huge chunk of it.

Question: Doesn't this make humans the true vermin?