Nobody wants a military installation next door. But military installations often become wildlife sanctuaries — broad expanses of land, mostly protected from development, certainly protected from hunters. Hence, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal — a chemical weapons plant and repository on the outskirts of Denver, is home to herds of antelope, deer, and is a bald eagle nesting refuge.
And, so, in Britain, the Salisbury Plain is largely controlled by the Ministry of Defense (the “tank crossing” signs are always entertaining to see on the road from Stonehenge to Avebury). And, so, wildlife within the military reservations there are largely protected. Including the badger population.
And, of course, badger hunting — for food, for bristles, for sport — has also dramatically declined in Britain.
Good stuff for badgers, right?
Bad stuff for archaeology, which has also, until now, benefitted from MoD ownership of much of the Salisbury Plain.
The 94,000-acre plain has 2,500 archaeological sites, more than 300 of them protected by law as Scheduled Ancient Monuments.
Since the MoD took it over for military exercises in 1897 it has become one of Britain’s best protected areas for wildlife and archaeology because little of the land is farmed. ‘It’s one of the most important historical landscapes in Europe – amazingly well preserved,’ says David Miles, chief archaeologist at English Heritage.
‘Most people think of Salisbury Plain for prehistoric archaeology, but it’s desperately important for the Roman period – you could walk around from one Roman village to the next, and down the streets in the village and down the country lanes to the next village. It’s almost like going back in time and seeing a countryside for the last 500 years or more.’
But badger populations have been booming on the plain, possibly causing TB epidemics among livestock, and certainly wreaking archaeological havoc.
To make matters worse for the archaeologists, badgers have an instinctive urge to dig – even when their sett is big enough, said Miles. ‘They are little bulldozers.’
The result on Salisbury Plain, Morton estimates, is badger setts in more than 52 Bronze Age barrows and Iron Age enclosures. They have burrowed into key sites such as the late Bronze Age East Chisenbury Midden, a rare accumulation of the remains of ceremonial events, built of layers of bones, flint, pottery and manure like a giant ‘chocolate cake’, he said.
Each sett generates tens of cubic yards of soil and scatters remains, so the damage can be considerable. ‘The layers become hopelessly jumbled … to such a degree that a large part of the information is lost forever.’
Problem is, short of extremely expensive fencing, or a nationwide culling of the badger population — neither of which is very palatable — there’s not a lot to be done.
Sure, the flashy stuff — Stonehenge, Avebury, places like that — will get the protection they need. But the less prominent sites, and the ones with possibly the most yet to tell us, are likely to be in big trouble.
(via Cronaca)
Badgers? We don’t need no stinkin’ badgers!
And now, Pinky, I must hurt you, badly.
Actually, hunting is allowed on most military posts/bases in the US. Here in Colorado, Ft. Carson has some tremendous deer and elk hunting open to the public (there is a safety class that anyone wishing to hunt the installation has to attend….I believe it’s two hours long). Ft Jackson, South Carolina has outstanding quail, deer, and turkey hunting.
Rather, then, hunting is relatively controlled (I would imagine). And, in reality, it’s certainly development of natural habitats for urban sprawl that impacts wildlife more than most hunting.
“And now, Pinky, I must hurt you, badly.”
Well, actually blame Mr. Sulu (George Takei). He was in a playtest of the Star Trek RPG (the one that FASA eventually did, IIRC, it was a smaller company that FASA did the distribution for originally). He did the playtest at a con (I have only vaguely hazy memories of which of the many game conventions it was). He had vast fun running his character, doing some sample combat and the like.
When he got to a checkpoint and was asked for his ID card…his reply was what I used above.
You’re correct, habitat depredation causes a greater impact on wildlife than hunting. Surprisingly, mortality from vehicles collisions also takes more animal life than hunting (I’ll find the Univeristy of Maryland study and post the link).
Well, I blame The Treasure of Sierra Madre fans, so far as that goes, but I’ll take Mr Takei as a more proximate cause.
I actually had occasion to meet the man, once. It was actually a political luncheon I was there for as a high school speech geek. He was sitting at one of the lunch tables. Reagan was the main speaker, as I recall, this in the Wilderness Years between Governorship and Presidency. He had his 3×5 cards and everything. Takei was quite into LA city politics for a while.