Exactly so Joe, that Guardian article reduces down to basically what I have been bleating on about all through this thread. Namely, do NOT trust the 'They's' of this world. They will lie, twist and turn and tell you absolutely anything to hide the 'head in the sand' failures they pontificate over.
The powers that be who rule over ANY aspect of our lives, from the government on down, are in the main intent only in lining their own nests and covering up anything that might embarrasses them, and burying anything that goes wrong on their watch. They paper over the cracks, give wonderful but meaningless speeches that still to this day somehow manage to con the general public into believing that they are doing a wonderful job.
The things that they claim to be doing, the stuff that really NEEDS doing, is actually never done. They keep up the pretense that they have their noses to the grindstone, that all their promises will be carried out during their time in charge, when in fact they are leaving the whole mess for the next lot in power....who will do exactly the same thing. Governments, hospital trusts, the social services, the newspaper industry, banks....think of ANY of the big noises in the political field, big business, civil servants, the priesthood, the police....anything....would you now trust any one of them? These whistle blowers and investigative journalists who keep exposing some of their dreadful wrongdoings must absolutely terrify them.
If you accept that there IS a big problem gnawing away at the heart of our society, then this 'fact sheet' that has been highly praised on this thread, the one with the title 'OTTERS-THE FACTS', is a fine example of the system in action. It is a paper brought out by the powers that be to answer all the criticisms leveled at them, to end the finger pointing and accusations brought by anglers and others. These accusations and questions obviously revolve around the perceived harm done by the releasing of otters that were bred and reared in cages....into the environment, at a time when the environment was least able to support them.
It seems that 'They' have done huge amounts of research, have collated all the evidence, listed each and every one of the surprisingly small number of otters involved, listed all the dates and places where these releases took place, explained away every ground for complaint, detailed why it was all a very fine idea, an absolutely necessary job very well done...great stuff. Smooth as silk, very believable, a PR job well done.
However, if you concentrate on it hard enough, and perhaps tie in some bits from other sources, there are some aspects of this paper that remain strangely unexplained. For instance, there were pockets of otters remaining, populations in areas where the farming chemicals that did so much damage to otters were not much used. By their own admission, once these dreadful chemicals were banned, the natural spread of otters in every direction, from the remaining original stock, was FAR stronger than they had expected. In fact it turned out to be so strong that once the truth of this became apparent, they ordered that the farming of these animals should stop....because it wasn't necessary.
Question (1)...Why did it take them SO many years to recognise this fact and act on it?
Question (2)...In view of this, does it not seem likely that in fact the whole project was never necessary in the first place, was actually all a pointless, damaging nonsense?
Question (3)...Had the otters return been allowed to take its own time, allowing the populations to build naturally, in line with available food, would we in fact have had none of the mayhem that followed the unnatural releases in East Anglia and Oxfordshire? Might we actually have had time to return our rivers to a state where they were far more able to sustain these extra mouths that had returned to the feeding bowl? If all the money, effort and manpower that went into the otter project...was instead dedicated to putting our rivers right, where might we be by now in that regard? Makes you wonder doesn't it?
If on the other hand you think this paper was squeaky clean, every word the absolute honest truth, not a single figure wrong, the dates of the start and cessation of the project correct, the number of people and animals involved spot on...then I am happy for you. No really, it's SO nice to be that trusting.
There is one fly in the ointment though. There is talk at the top of this 'fact sheet' relating to those who put it out, then at the very bottom you will read 'This is a partnership publication by'....Natural England, the EA and the AT. Now, all those bodies have had a battering to differing degrees during this whole otter release issue, and not without reason. The EA and Natural England are the two bodies (although under different names at that time) who started, encouraged, fully supported and at least partly financed the whole thing, and the AT came in with strong support when it came into existence later on. So, you would hardly expect this report to read in any other way, would you? Farcical? Sanitised? A great PR job? I guess quite possibly so.
Cheers, Dave.
