Letters / Sick behaviour
I refer to your article “We’re so Happy” (SN, 24 July 2012) One of Lea Gardens’ Chinese volunteers suffered such appalling racial abuse, something he’d never experienced before, that he was worried about going to Lerwick unaccompanied.
Many of our volunteers have travelled far and wide, and are appalled at the amount of road kill, especially birds, in Shetland. They’ve never come across anything like this anywhere on this planet.
Having recently, on the same evening, put one badly injured creature out of its misery and taken another to the bird sanctuary at Tingwall, where it subsequently died, I asked one of the SSPCA officers if they couldn’t start an awareness campaign, asking drivers to slow down when approaching birds or at least, if they can’t avoid running over them, to make sure they’re dead rather than leave them to die a slow and agonising death.
The answer I received came as a shock to me. I was told there was no point, as deliberately running over birds was considered sport by some members of this community and widely practised, especially at weekends, as part of “joy” riding.
It seems our roads are not the only places where animals are deliberately maimed and killed. I still remember the “Whalsay” incident, where several seal pups were beaten to death, and we were all assured that this was a one-off incident and quite uncharacteristic. Now two salmon farmers are shortly to appear in court on a charge of illegally netting seals, and we’ve seen the horrific injuries banned monofilament net inflicts on these animals (SN, 30 July 2012).
I find such incidents disturbing in the extreme and they make me feel ashamed. They don’t make us look good in the eyes of the world and don’t sit easily with our all-singing all-dancing image (we’re so happy). Such acts of cruelty to animals and insulting behaviour towards our fellow human beings are a sign that something is wrong with this society. We can either continue to stick our heads in the sand and pretend this doesn’t happen or cease to tolerate and excuse such sick behaviour and say so loud and clear.
Rosa Steppanova
Tresta
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