Bog Myrtle & Peat

Perhaps a little bit late on parade with this, but I’ve just come across BBC news coverage of a dog which was killed by a seal while swimming in the North Sea. It emerged that the dog was actually a black labrador, and it was swimming because it had been sent to retrieve a duck which its owner had just shot. The owner then had to shoot the dog after the seal had effectively ripped it to pieces and tossed it around like a rag doll. All in all, it seems to have been a thoroughly unpleasant incident.

However, when the news was published online and “comments” were enabled to allow the general British public to have their say, some interesting bits and pieces emerged. Now, I don’t really understand the mentality of someone who would publicly tag their opinion onto a national news story, as if their contribution was equally important as the news item itself. But bear with this sample of opinions from the Glasgow Herald website, because they are almost as ridiculous as they are factually incorrect.

Angus MacKay wrote – “Of course “Seals are very vicious animals”, they have to be, they live by ripping their prey apart and eating. Dogs would be vicious animals, if they weren’t fed by their owners. Ducks aren’t vicious creatures, they don’t have to be, they are vegetarians, not equipped to catch prey and eat. Humans are vicious, but was there any reason other than sport for this “duck shooter” to go on his killing sprees. Appears the “duck shooter” was taking pot shots at sitting ducks in the water – not very sporting. Wonder how many of his wounded ducks have thrashed about,” pouring with blood and in spasms of agony” until his dog takes them to the “duck shooter” to “end its suffering”. A horrible, painful unnecessary death for the dog and the duck – what now, an excuse for more horrible deaths, perhaps a seal cull.

Jo Greenhorn from Lanarkshire said – “The other aspect to this is that this young man was out shooting in the dark and sent the dog into the sea in the dark. I suppose we must just be thankful there were no other people walking on the beach around that time when someone was discharging a firearm in the hope of shooting a few ducks”.

I particularly enjoyed the casual assumption that the duck shooter was shooting “sitting” ducks, presumably on the basis of the fact that the dog was sent into the water to retrieve a shot bird. Obviously, if it had been a “sporting shot” at a bird in the sky, the dog would have been sent into the sky to retrieve it. I shouldn’t be surprised about this – the language is always a give away. People who oppose shooting think that it is impossible to hold a gun – they think you have to “tote” it. There is no such thing as firing a gun – only “taking pot shots”.

There are also extensive discussion elsewhere on how it is illegal to carry a firearm on a “public beach”, despite the fact that the incident took place on the foreshore. It is amazing just how little shooting’s opponents really now about the sport they hate, and worrying how happy they are to wade in regardless.