My views on hunting are fairly clear and I appreciate many people do not feel the same, however I fully respect their opinions and hope they respect mine. I do agree with hunting when it concerns resourcing food or population management but I do not agree with it as a sport. My difficulty arises when both are combined, I don’t know how I feel about that.
Dad and I were talking about the hunting season the other day, so the whole subject has been on my mind and as I wandered through the news this morning, an article from the Daily Mail online caught my attention.
According to the article criminals are turning poacher, in order to cash in on a growing demand for game, due to food fads encouraged by celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver.
“The popularity of game such as venison, partridge, pheasant and hare in the recipes of Jamie Oliver and his television colleagues is proving all too tempting to a new breed of poacher.”
Professional criminals are using less than humane methods to kill animals and sell the meat on the blackmarket. “Besides crossbows and snares, deer are being lured to their deaths on roads by poachers using jam sandwiches as bait.”
Is this really happening because a few TV chefs recommended trying venison or pheasant? I don’t think so. Ever since people first claimed rights over the wild animals & birds residing on their land, there have been poachers. It is a very old way of getting food and making money and as people are struggling more and more with their bills, it’s hardly surprising some are turning to less than legal ways of supporting themselves.
I have always put poaching and scrumping for apples in the same class, harmless really. In my romantic notion of poaching, I never really considered the lengths that the poachers today will go to in order to catch their prey. I’m quite sickened to think of a jam sandwich baited deer being mown down by a 4X4.
The police are using DNA techniques to track poached meat, by matching samples taken from the crime scene, to suspected blackmarket meat seized from butchers and restaurants. But the best way to make sure you’re eating legitimately hunted meat, is to know exactly where it came from. Ask your butcher or waiter, if the meat is all above board, they’ll have no problem in telling you all about it.
We buy our game directly from a farmer’s stall at our local farmers market. It really does pay to get to know your producers; my parents visit said stall every month, they chat, catch up and get insider knowledge on what’s best at the moment. They know exactly where the game they eat is from and because of that, they know what sort of quality they are getting.
Source
THE CRUEL POACHERS CASHING IN ON FOOD FAD
Photo: Freefoto.com
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