Save Our Stags: The Long Struggle Against Britain s Most Controversial Blood Sport

£9.18

A classic of animal rights literature - This book carefully details the history of the anti bloodsports campaigns of the 60 and 70 s from the perspective of someone who cared deeply enough about animal welfare and was so outraged about the cruelties he saw that he did what most of us are too apathetic or afraid to do, he was instrumental in starting a direct action movement against stag hunting and the perpetrators of this sordid sport .In a careful and thought provoking manner the author details the history of a `sport that even outraged its natural allies in the fox hunting world. How from the earliest years of the 16th and 17th century the stag hunters were marginalised in the broader hunting community but survived in rabid pockets of die hard supporters. Taking us through the early 20th century and through to the 50 s we are drawn into the world of the hunters and embryonic animal rights movements to protect our wildlife as it gradually declined in the countryside. As we reach the 60 s we see how individuals realised that campaigning would only be effective if the fight were taken directly to the front line, how the hunters reacted with appalling violence to those who opposed them and how public opinion was swiftly mobilised against bloodsports in general.The author writes freely about the characters and incidents that defined the `pro s and `anti s alike. He does so in a manner that is both objective and yet laced with deep emotion. As a former sanctuary manager he was closely involved with people who themselves hunted, people who at a personal level he could respect and in return respected him and yet were on the other side of a divide that could never be bridged. At the same time the movements against hunting became deeply political leading to rifts in the organisations that tore them apart in the 80 s and 90 s causing his own marginalisation from the causes he loved.The book has no happy ending.Today the laws against hunting are flaunted with impunity. The Countryside Alliance spouts misinformation at will and is nominally a `rural concerns organisation and yet its bloody antecedents lie firmly within the British Fields Sports Society. The Labour Party has washed its hands of any social agenda and with the imminent return of the Conservatives even this minor protection for wildlife will be swept away on a tide of blood.This book is a wake up call for society. If we do not shrug off the apathy that permeates us and start to care once again then the rights that people like the author fought so hard for will have been in vain and our countryside and its wildlife will be condemned to a brutal and bloody reversion to the past.