Poor old Ed Miliband. I watched footage on television of his much-touted comeback speech last week and I found that it didn’t matter what he said, because his words took backstage to his appearance and voice. He may or may not be a brilliant politician — no doubt we all have our own views on that. But he doesn’t really have a chance to make his case, because he comes across as a weird geek with a mouth stuffed with cotton wool. Terribly unfair, I know, but we live in a media age where these things count for more than they should. Now, I am not exactly a paragon of presentational virtue myself. Sartorial elegance has never been my strong point. On the few occasions when I have been found lurking in an office, visitors have been known to mistake me for a janitor who has seen better days. I do sometimes struggle into a suit (funny how all my clothes seem to have shrunk over the years), but nowadays I tend to wear the sort of kit smarter people reserve for walking the dog, even when I am in town. I am just too damned idle to change.

What we look and sound like is, sometimes, a problem for shooters — particularly when we encounter members of the public. A properly clothed wildfowler or a pigeon decoyer might appear to be a rather frightening figure to the uninitiated, especially when encountered in a lonely spot in the half-light. And when a camo-clad man wearing a face mask happens to be wielding a synthetic-stocked semi-automatic shotgun... Well, you can imagine the consternation this might cause. And it’s not just that particular section of the shooting community that can seem, at times, to be distanced from the ordinary realm of urbanite acceptability. Some driven game Shots get decked out in a manner that seems deliberately calculated to look faintly ridiculous.

Extreme fashions

I make a notable exception here for gamekeepers in full tweeds. They invariably look smart. Even if they are mistaken for Downton Abbey characters, the public perception accords their uniform a degree of respect. And Guns wearing decent breeks and covert coats are also in a sort of uniform that the public expects and accepts. On the other hand, some of the more extreme fashions worn by certain Guns really should not be seen away from the shooting field if the wearers want to be taken seriously. Often, the hat is a particular offender. Not that I am one to talk. My own hats cause deep embarrassment to my sons when we are shooting in company. This is right and proper, of course. You know you have reached respectable middle age when your children are embarrassed to be seen with you.

I favour an ordinary flat hat for most outdoor tasks, or a peaked hat with earflaps if I am on the quad or up in the hills. And I look quite silly enough, I am told. But even I look askance at the more extreme sorts of cowboy hat worn by some Guns. Even worse, arguably, are those exaggerated, baker-boy fl at caps which create a sizeable rain shadow around the wearer, who ends up looking like a walking toadstool, or an extra from a Hovis advertisement. Yes, I know they have a practical function, and I also know they are considered socially smart in some circles. But I sometimes wonder if the wearers really understand just how ludicrous they look in such inflated headgear.

Voices also matter, as the Miliband experience shows. If somebody representing the shooting world appears on television or radio, then either a moderate regional accent, or so-called received pronunciation (what used to be called BBC English) allows the speaker to get his or her point across with minimal distraction. The same is not true of a hoitytoity braying, especially when it emanates from a red-faced, tweed-clad caricature in plus-eights sheltering under a stupendous hat. Sorry to be blunt, but when it comes to defending fieldsports, keep toffs off TV.

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Every cloud has a silver lining. Take climate change, for instance — it is actually saving bears, would you believe? At least, this appears to be the logic of a certain type of so-called conservationist.

Saved from what? Why, from those nasty humans, of course. But how? Well, the bear species in question is potentially under some pressure because of climate change, which means that it is endangered, so its legal protection has been restored, which in turn means it cannot legally be culled.

In short, the bear is potentially endangered, which is good news because now it cannot be killed… Yes, I know. The logic is bizarre. But it illustrates neatly how some people are more anti-hunter than they are pro-animal. Let me give you the background.

The protectionist lobby is cock-a-hoop over a recent decision by the US Court of Appeals to restore full legal protection for the grizzly bear population in Yellowstone National Park. The ruling overturned the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision in 2007 to remove the resurgent Yellowstone grizzly population from the endangered species list.

The crux of the case was climate change, which is said to have accelerated a beetle infestation that destroys one of the bear’s most important food supplies — the bark of the white pine. The court was persuaded that if, in future, this important food supply dwindled, the grizzlies might be forced to forage in more populous areas, which could create more conflict with humans.

However, a degree of conflict already exists, of course. Yellowstone’s grizzly bears have tripled in numbers to 600 over recent decades and have munched their way through an increasing number of hapless eco-tourists. Park and wildlife offi cials have been forced to cull increasing number of bears for reasons of public safety, with the toll standing at 75 bears in 2010. The new court ruling eliminates this option, even though such a cull was no threat to the bear population.

Now, many of us might agree with the judge’s sentiment that the grizzly bear is “both revered and feared as symbol of wildness, independence and massive strength”. And as for the potential problems for the Yellowstone bears posed by “climate change” (note how that term is now used instead of global warming, presumably because the globe has not actually warmed since 1998) well, that might well be true. I don’t know, and neither do the scientists, really. It was only mooted as a possibility, but the court held that such a possibility had not been adequately assessed when the 2007 decision was made. Hence the latest ruling. This is an example of the fabled “precautionary principle” of environmental legislation coming into play.

All the above reasoning might be fair enough. But what concerns me is the undisguised glee which greeted the ruling forementioned and the determination to make it apply to other species. Licensed “hunting” was no threat whatsoever to the Yellowstone bears as a species. So what, exactly, are the protectionists celebrating? If climate change really is the underlying problem for the bears, the court ruling does damn all to solve it. The potential extinction of an iconic species through climate change doesn’t seem like a laughing matter to me.

The unedifying fact is that a certain sort of person or organisation loves to milk issues such as climate change for their own vested interests, be these commercial, personal or career ones. In this country, how long will it be before we hear calls for the red grouse to be taken off the quarry list because its habitat is threatened by “global warming”? Of course, we all know that such a ban, unlikely as it might be, would effectively sound the death knell of this iconic and unique upland British species, which depends so heavily on man’s management of a semi-natural habitat. But doubtless champagne corks would be popping somewhere.

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We live in a surveillance society. You may well think that you deserve to be left unobserved in your own home, or on your own private property, but the plain fact is that all sorts of people have the means — lawful or otherwise — to watch us anywhere and at any time.

Sometimes the motives of the watchers are good, but the overall effect can be oppressive. Apparently, the UK has more state-funded CCTV cameras per head of population than any other country in the world. Wildlife protection agencies festoon certain localities with remote operating cameras. While these occasionally produce juicy footage to be used in court cases and shown on television, I have seen little evidence that they have any deterrent effect.

Yet, if the state can use surveillance devices on us, we can also use these same bits of kit for our own legitimate purposes. The small, battery-operated devices called game or trail cameras, and almost always manufactured in the US, can have a variety of benign uses. These cameras have heat-sensitive movement sensors triggering infrared flashes, and can be set to take either still or video pictures.

They are powered by batteries and can be left in position for weeks or even months. The images are captured on an SD card and can be downloaded complete with time, date and even moon phase. They were originally designed to enable hunters to monitor game paths and food plots.

I recall a television wildlife documentary which used trail cameras set to the video mode to capture startling images of tigers and snow leopards in localities where their presence had merely been suspected. I believe similar cameras, which light up the target area at night with infrared light from invisible or “black” LEDs, have been used to spot wildcats in Scotland.

I myself have a number of trail cameras, which I use for various purposes on my farm, including monitoring deer and badger activity. What always interests me is the amount of wildlife that these devices spot during the hours of darkness. It really is an eye-opener to see roe deer threading through the cars in the yard, with supposedly watchful dogs snoring in the kennel just a few feet away.

The intriguing thing is that when I bought a new trail camera recently (one with the “black” LED fl ash and about the size of a book), the chap behind thecounter told me that he estimated that 90 per cent of the trail cameras he sold were not used to watch wildlife, but to watch people. Especially in rural areas, it seems, trail cameras are being placed to cover outbuildings, pheasant pens, gateways, rides in woodland and the like. The aim is to capture photos of miscreants as they go about their nefarious business.

One gamekeeper I know used a trail camera to find out exactly when a group of illegal off-road motorbikers were using a particular track across a bit of lonely moorland. For a variety of reasons the resulting footage was not, in itself, deemed suitable for use in court, but the remote monitoring subsequently enabled two police officers to be in the right place at the right time to ambush the bikers on their next visit.

There is something slightly creepy about the thought of remote cameras being dotted about the countryside. However, the fact is that almost every piece of the surface of Britain — including homes and gardens — has been repeatedly photographed. This includes aerial photography by the Ordnance Survey, as well as satellite photography by a variety of commercial and state bodies. Not that there is anything new in this — great swathes of rural Britain were photographed by the RAF in the 1940s. More recently, there have been camera cars from Google Steetview prowling the suburbs, while the OS-sponsored Geograph website has resulted in trespass to obtain photos of rural homes and landscapes.

With all this state and commercial snooping going on, why shouldn’t we be able to turn the tables, just occasionally?

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