How long is a long shot, when it comes to rifle shooting? When I am stalking on the open hill, I prefer to get to 150 yards — certainly, within 200 yards. I reckon 250 yards is a long shot for me. I don’t think I would willingly shoot at an unwounded beast much beyond that. As far as I am concerned, the sport is in the stalk. I regard telescopic sights as an aid to humane shot placement at normal ranges.

But there are other people who have different ideas. If you want to see some truly extreme range rifle shooting, then check out some of the footage of TrackingPoint (www.tracking-point.com) — a technology outfit based in Austin, Texas. The company has just launched what it calls a Precision Guided Weapon system for hunters.

According to the blurb, this entails applying the sort of “lock-and-launch” technology used in fighter jets to a highly sophisticated aiming system mounted on a bolt-action rifle built around a calibre such as .338 Lapua.

The sighting system allows you to input every conceivable fixed and variable factor, including atmospheric conditions. You then “tag” the target through a high-powered scope. A red dot appears as a heads-up display in the scope. Then, after you have loaded the gun, the guided trigger will fire when your sight dot overlays the tag. The makers claim this allows the hunter to
kill quarry cleanly at ranges up to 1,200 yards.

I first stumbled upon footage of this system being used on African plains game when looking at the website of a hunting outfitter called eZulu, in South Africa. A five-minute video shows some truly astonishing shots, including a springbok (an antelope the size of a roebuck) downed at 1,099 yards. But, is this hunting?

The shots in the video are all clean and humane (but then, they would be, wouldn’t they?) I am not questioning the animal welfare aspect. And the technology really is amazing (so is the price tag, at about £20,000). The scenery is fabulous. But, again, I ask — is this hunting? Or is it simply long-range target shooting, akin to a computer game, but using a live animal as the target?

Some of the antelope are barely visible to the naked eye at the ranges at which they are felled. The overall impression is of a military sniping team in action, rather than a fair-chase hunt. I don’t suppose it matters a jot to the animals. But should it matter to us, as hunters? Have a look at www.ezulugamereserve.com/ blog. I shall be interested in your views.

Doing what comes naturally

It is usually dangerous to attribute human characteristics to animals. Unjustified anthropomorphism is used by animal rights activists to stoke up sentimental, ill-informed attitudes to the natural way we use animals humanely for our benefit. Some activists, for example, decry the use of animals as domestic pets, saying cats and dogs become slaves.

Accepting that anthropomorphism is often inappropriate, however, doesn’t stop us observing the similarities between animal and human behaviour. I was struck by this thought when I read that Edinburgh Zoo’s two giant pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, might be on track to produce a little panda.

Apparently, the male, Yang Guang (Sunshine), has been observed doing handstands and scent-marking in unusual places. Meanwhile the female, Tian Tian (Sweetie) has been shaking her backside and making bleating noises.

According to experts, the behaviour of Sunshine and Sweetie indicates that they may be getting ready to mate. Well, I could have told you that. This sort of behaviour is pretty routine among humans in Newcastle’s Bigg Market every Friday night. 

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I have sometimes bemoaned the way planning inspectors appear to ride roughshod over local democracy when it comes to imposing giant wind turbines on cherished landscapes. But there is another side to the planning story — one where the planning inspector represents the only antidote to what amounts to little more than mob rule by stupid, selfish or downright malicious objectors who are indulged for nakedly political reasons.

Recently I visited the site of a proposed new shooting ground. Having been shown around, I could not think of a more suitable location or better set-up. It can accommodate most shotgun disciplines within a very pleasant layout, with full access and facilities for disabled shooters. It would also accommodate archery and air rifle users. The site encompasses a host of newly- created wildlife habitats, including ponds, feeding stations, nest boxes and recently planted native woodland.

The site is far from residential properties. Noise should not be an issue as the site is bounded by a busy railway line on one side and there is a motorway nearby. There is a landfill site nearby with huge machinery engaged in restoration work. The shooting ground has been operating for more than a year under the 28-day rule without the council receiving a single complaint about noise.

Last year, the operators of the shooting ground applied for planning permission to operate on more than 28 days per year. They are proposing to shoot just three days a week, from new acoustic shelters, and only between 10am and 3pm. Who could possibly object to that?

Activists’ scaremongering

Well, zillions of people, apparently, most of whom live miles away from the site. And the best hook they have found to hang their opposition on is the fact that there is a rather unremarkable marshland SSSI hundreds of metres away from the shooting ground. Whipped up by a Labour councillor, copycat objections have been spawned from the membership database of a local conservation forum. The activists are peddling the claim that the noise of shooting (heard above the motorway/railway/landfill traffic, presumably) will deter raptors from visiting the SSSI. This scaremongering, which has been rebutted by top-calibre noise and environmental consultants, has sparked headlines along the lines of “Gun club threat to wildlife”. One of the most robust opponents of the planning application is the council’s own ecologist, who works in the planning department. She wrote a report that the applicants’ lawyers described as misleading and selective.

The conservation forum’s chairman is the local councillor who is the most vocal critic of the shooting ground. He is also on the planning committee that will be considering the application. And, worst of all, the council’s in-house ecologist happens to be the secretary of the forum.

Now, presumably, the councillor will have to absent himself from the vote, when it comes. But how was the council ecologist allowed to write a supposedly impartial report about the planning application without anybody spotting what appears to be a titantic conflict of interest?

But then, the council is already playing dirty. When the initial noise report didn’t show what it wanted, it demanded another. Even while that was being specifi ed, it tried to rush a vote through before the new results could be obtained. The applicants’ solicitors saw through that little ruse. Now the council is trying to slap unworkable conditions on the development. The only hope is that the application will wash up in front of the planning inspectorate, which makes its decisions based on hard facts. In the meantime, the applicants are being made to jump every hurdle the council can erect, presumably in the hope that they will run out of money or patience. Truly, some local authorities give democracy a bad name.

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So, the RSPCA is quietly killing nearly half the animals it “rescues”. This is partly because it cannot find homes for them. Last year’s grisly toll, according to the Mail on Sunday, amounts to more than 53,000 animals. Several thousand of these were healthy.

In response, the charity has been energetically flinging mud at the whistle- lower who alerted the media. The RSPCA dismisses her allegations as the ranting of a disgruntled former employee who left during unresolved disciplinary issues. Yet the bare facts are uncontested. It’s not a new story — similar figures have been published before. What is new is the media coverage and the context.

The same outfit that blew nearly a third of a million pounds on a politically motivated legal stunt against the Heythrop Hunt, while at the same time closing centres and laying off staff because of a claimed lack of money, kills thousands of healthy pets because it doesn’t have the resources to find homes for them. How’s that for “giving animals a voice”?

Of course, the RSPCA has no real option but to put down healthy domestic pets if it cannot find homes for them. We all know that — even if many prefer not to think about such realities. But why hasn’t the charity devoted a greater share of its resources to rehoming? Why hasn’t it done more to deal with the issues that have led to a glut of unwanted pets?

Economical with the truth

On even the most favourable interpretation, the RSPCA stands accused of being economical with the truth. Whatever the necessity, the fact that it is killing truckloads of healthy pets has come as a shock to many members and donors. The RSPCA deserves to carry the can for not keeping those good folk properly informed, while at the same time milking them for every penny it could. But then, that’s par for the course for the RSPCA.

The way that one of the UK’s most high-profile registered charities seems to glide though the strictures of the Charity Commission never ceases to amaze me. I repeatedly asked it precisely how much the RSPCA had spent on political campaigning against fox hunting in the run-up to the ban. The charity refused to provide the figure, hiding it within a more general category. Astonishingly, the Charity Commission refused to intervene. I have been involved with many charities, yet I have never seen another that seems to enjoy a similar special relationship with the Charity Commission. Are some charities simply too big to be held to account?

Most of the RSPCA’s frontline staff carry out really good animal welfare work. The sort of work that falls within its remit as a registered charity, allowing the RSPCA all sorts of lucrative tax breaks. If there is any real possibility that a registered charity is abusing its privileged status, then the Charity Commission should investigate. It should not wait for a formal complaint, or newspaper headlines. A lot of people give hard-earned money to the RSPCA. They deserve transparency. They trust the Charity Commission to do its job properly, without fear or favour.

The RSPCA is notorious, in some circles, for being excessively litigious when it sniffs an opportunity for making money and headlines. I have been told of an instance when a rather sad person was prosecuted for an animal welfare offence, based on neglect against a background of tragic personal circumstances. The RSPCA is said to have deliberately inflated the number of individual offences in this case by legal trickery. Then it smoothly asked an unquestioning court for vastly larger expenses than would otherwise have been justified. The plight of the animals, it is alleged, was just a means to an end in this particular case. Is this sort of exercise being replicated in local courts up and down the country?

It is high time that the RSPCA was properly investigated by the Charity Commission. Apart from anything else, the animals deserve a voice — don’t they?

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