Sport in wildest Britain

Front matter

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Contents

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LIST OF COLOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

BLACK GROUSE BRENT GOOSE GOLDEN PLOVER .

II

The first grey seal that I ever saw was upon the rock, Lagan Maskeir, off North Uist. We had approached in a boat with all the caution that we could drill into the lobster-fishers who owned her, and after a crawl over limpet and seaweed we reached a point of vantage on the low flat rock. In front among a medley of boulders, which are covered at high tide, were exposed some acres of weed and pool; on the farther side of these and across a narrow channel a single seal was lying upon the outermost skerry of Lagan Maskeir. Accustomed as I was to the aspect of the common seal (Phoca vitulina), the bulk of his mighty cousin, now seen for the first time, fairly amazed me. As a matter of fact, he was not a very big bull, certainly not above seven or eight feet in length, but he must have weighed more than twice as much as the largest common seal, which rarely exceeds six feet in length or weighs over 200 lbs. This seal before me may have weighed 400. But it was only for an instant that I had opportunity of observing him, for, disturbed by the Gaelic voices of the lobster-fishers, who were backing their boat from the rock, he plunged into the water, and when he appeared again his head made a mere blot upon the sapphire surface of the sea. Here he was joined by another seal, but both were so wild as to render an approach within 300 yards impossible.

No doubt the seals, which, during the months of July, August, and September, haunt the vicinity of such skerries as Maskeir, Lagan Maskeir, and Sgeirleir, repair to the larger island of Haskeir in October and November to bring forth their young. All the grey seals upon that part of the Uist coast come from one or other of the great rocks in the Atlantic, from which they are driven in the mating season by the gigantic bulls who rule there. Tremendous fights take place between the males in August, and there is every evidence to lead one to believe that some of these combats terminate fatally. Young males, when shot at this time of year, often show the most appalling wounds, and are no doubt forced to leave the main rookeries in numbers. Sometimes they attach to themselves wandering and roving females, and with them pass the late summer and early autumn; but it is certain that the latter all return to Haskeir or some other island to bring forth their young, since the grey seal puppies are unable to swim for a fortnight or more after birth, and during this time are kept above high-water mark by their mothers. A rock which is never covered by the tide is therefore a necessity to the breeding mother, and at such periods the seals ascend the rocky elevations of Haskeir to as great a height as eighty feet above sea-level.

It is at this season of the year, while the young are helpless, mothers nursing, and the big bulls often lying with their families, that the annual “clubbing of the seals” takes place. The island of Haskeir is the property of Sir Arthur Orde, Bart., and he has made strenuous endeavours to put a stop to this iniquity; but Haskeir cannot be policed, and when, at the instance of Sir Arthur, the Uist men abandoned the clubbing, a boat’s crew from Harris visited the rock and carried on the disgusting work of destruction. Considering that the grey seal as a race is slowly but surely advancing along the road to extinction, it is a matter for regret that the Government do not afford them some protection. For our British seals are outlawed, and may be slain in any manner or at any time of the year. No doubt seals are a nuisance near a salmon river; but even so, ninety-nine of every hundred which visit such places are of the common and not the grey variety. The grey seals hold to the open sea; and surely these splendid animals have a claim to fair treatment. Unfortunately, however, they have not votes, and the sprinkling of men who wish to club them have. So if a Bill for the protection of grey seals were brought forward, it would, in all probability, be strongly and successfully opposed by some political genius who knew no more of our largest mammal than his secretary could digest in a half-hour’s hunt through the enclycopzdias of the House of Commons library.

The annual clubbing has been described to me by many witnesses. The visit is made in the month of November, if the weather permits, which, happily, it did not in 1912. The crew of the boat quietly land, the passes to the sea are blocked, and a savage slaughter with clubs and staves becomes the order of the day, or rather of the night. Rifles and guns are rarely if ever used, as their discharge disturbs the rookeries. The seals are hit at the root of the nose, and the first, or at any rate the second, blow should kill. If it fails to do so, my informants tell me that the skin swells up with suffused blood, and one might as well hit an india-rubber ball with the club for all the injury that can be done after the appearance of the swelling. ‘The exact number of seals killed at these annual butcheries is large. That thirty-nine were killed in one year and forty-seven in another and forty-three in a third is a statement made upon various, but closely corresponding, evidence. ‘The value of the seals is not great, there being no large demand for the skins, though the oil is put to various uses. An annual average of at least thirty or forty seals are destroyed on Haskeir alone.

From every point of view this clubbing of the seals is regrettable. It is indeed little more than a senseless slaughter, undertaken at a time when by every rule of decency, not to speak of sportsmanship, the poor beasts should be free from molestation. Probably nothing that any one may write will ever raise enough indignation to get a Bill passed through Parliament even in these days of “‘ speeding up ”’ legislation by gag and guillotine.

Haskeir is not the only place at which an annual clubbing occurs. There are several other rocks or islets round our coasts where the seals are done to death. And there is also this fact to consider: that, in some cases, more than half the animals killed have been left behind to rot upon the rocks. Of forty seals killed twenty may be adults—the male, as has been said, may weigh 600 lbs., the female well over 300. Taking 300 Ibs. as an average weight of the adult seals killed, and not counting the slaughtered innocents, we get a weight of 6,000 lbs.—a cargo of slippery shifting seals. Sixty have been killed over and over again. How many of the sixty carcases have ever been taken to the mainland, as the attacking party usually go in one or at most two small boats? Of course it may be said that the skinning of the seals might be done upon the spot. This is absurd, as the seal is a terribly difficult animal to skin, and two good skinners have the work of a whole afternoon over one carcase. It is possible that, in some cases, the skins and the blubber alone are taken, but as a rule a clubbing crew will not remain upon a rock, such as Haskeir, for longer than they can help. A squall in those latitudes comes up very quickly, and the delay of a quarter of an hour might sometimes mean a perilous embarkation. No, the annual clubbing of the grey seals, as it is carried out in Great Britain at the present time, is a blot and disgrace upon the humanity and civilisation of those who take part in it and of those who by their lethargy permit the thing to continue.

There is something intensely pathetic in the idea that the grey seal will return—in ever-dwindling numbers it is true—year after year to the blood-stained ledges whereon his ancestors, his relations and his offspring have for decades, and even for centuries, been done to death. All the rest of the year he gives man small opportunity to hunt him with success, but in this one month, betrayed by the necessity of the needs of the new generation, he falls a prey to the crudest of methods. Often and often, as I have turned away from an easy chance at a grey seal, because the recovery of the animal’s body if killed was doubtful, I have thought with bitterness that, in all probability, the beast was destined to be an item in the bag of some future clubbing crew. Enough of it! It is a very painful subject. But no doubt the grey seal would have been practically extinct many years ago were it not for its best friend, the west wind, which again and again prevents the clubbing parties from landing on the forlorn Atlantic islets, so that sometimes three and four years pass and the lesser breeding-places remain unvisited. ‘This, and only this, is the reason that the grey seal continues with us to-day in any numbers. If clubbing were made illegal the loss to the islanders would be small, as the skins are worth at most but a few shillings apiece and the oil not very much more.