Originally written 19/10/10.
I'm sat in the library, and there is some child crying next to me. Not really crying, per se, I suppose, but more screeching. Not screaming. Screeching. Like a howler monkey or a banshee or something. It has a fantastic lung capacity, by the way, as it has not stopped making noise for even a second within the last ten minutes. The mother of this audio abomination seems blissfully content to let it howl down the walls regardless of the fact that, sooner or later, someone is going to curb stomp her young cub into eternal silence. For now, we're all just about content - and I use that term loosely - to let the thing rage until it explodes. The downside is that if I get showered by steaming child-offal, I will be even less pleased.
I'll bite. The article has nothing to do with screaming children. It has a lot more to do with the difficult topic of squirrel genocide, allow me to explain.
Not-so-recently-but-a-bit-recently, Raymond Elliot was found guilty of animal cruelty and fined £1500 for drowning a grey squirrel that was stealing from his bird table. Obviously, stealing bird food is a very serious offence, but I can't help but be slightly terrified by anyone who would drown a small fluffy animal in a paroxysm of unconcealed rage. But this post is not really about Elliot - whose views on the rehabilitation of criminals would be distressing to say the least - but more on the people who stand up for him. Cue drumroll for Norris Atthey, a wildlife campaigner who drowned a squirrel for publicity, maybe, or because he couldn't see a good reason not to. Anyway, it was allegedly some kind of bizarre protest at the treatment of Elliot, but anyone who manages to reconcile "wildlife campaigner" with "squirrel executioner" has to be a bit nuts*.
Atthey is a terrifying man for a variety of interesting reasons. First, and most obviously, he's a psychopath who drowns small animals for fun, the kind of person you wouldn't want as a neighbour, anyway. He's also out-an-out racist who believes in the superiority of the red squirrel over its cousin, the grey. Alright, I don't know if that's a bit strong, but still. Probably the most disturbing part about Atthey is the fact that he's killed, according to that article, two hundred and fifty squirrels and that this was the most humane way he could find apart from shooting them. The implication there is that he has potentially found two hundred and forty eight ways of killing squirrels in a less humane way. And vol-lia, squirrel genocide. Maybe he has a stuffed squirrel army.
He's got problems, anyway.
Now, I can hardly talk. I do like eating dead animals. Delicious tender meat and all that. I'm no ethical saint. So maybe all this talk of psychosis and genocide is a little bit wrong. After all, returning to the Elliot article, we find it isn't really wrong to kill squirrels, according to the Forestry Commission. However, they disagree with Atthey, so its all an academic argument of how you should kill the fluffy animal, not why. Interestingly, the most humane way recommended by the Forestry Commission is to put the squirrel in a sack and beat it to death with a hammer. That's preferable to drowning, apparently, although I'm sure no one asked the squirrels.
Its interesting to think that drowning kittens in a sack is just sad, but bludgeoning kittens to death with a mallet would rank you up there with people like Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Huntley, and George Osbourne amongst the most dangerously unhinged people in Britain. This isn't true of squirrels. Kittens are cute and grey squirrels are immigrants. Maybe this is going a bit too far anyway.
The child has left. Or exploded. Or something. Anyway, it isn't here anymore so my eardrums are taking a well earned rest. But if you tip your head to one side, and listen very, very, very carefully, you might hear that odd little chirping noise. The kind made by a trapped, frightened and lonely animal in the last few seconds of its life. You're not a monster if you drown squirrels, and even less a monster if you pulp them with a hammer. For some reason, this isn't exactly comforting, and for some reason, those little chirping screams keep ringing in my ears.
*Yeah, that was a bad one. I'm sorry.
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