Boumani the cheetah and his handler, Jonny Ames
It's the film that has reopened the debate about British attitudes to animals - both our livestock/pets and our wildlife. As part of a package designed to show the ludicrous state of the Hunting Act in the final few months before it will surely be repealed, the Fieldsports Britain programme on Fieldsports Channel shows remarkable film of a cheetah hunting rabbits in the UK.
"This is not hunting with dogs," says Fieldsports Channel presenter Charlie Jacoby, "It's hunting with a cat. So we reckon it's exempt. And the cheetah is hunting a rabbit, which is exempt when neither a hare nor a mouse is. Let your dog chase a mouse and you face a £5,000 fine. Until earlier this year there was a law forcing you to kill rabbits on your land." The cheetah, called Boumani, comes from the Eagle Heights wildlife park in Kent. Its owner is keen to train it to catch live game as part of a cheetah re-introduction project. Under British law, he can do it - but he faces howls from the antis when he tries. "We had to make sure that we did this properly - and that there was no risk to the public," says Charlie Jacoby. "A cheetah can give you a bite as nasty as a big dog. So we went to great lengths to find a deer-fenced area (at an undisclosed location in Essex). It had to have a good population of rabbits for Boumani to try to catch - and the cheetah had to do all this under the glare of our own cameras and the cameras from The Sunday Times. It is testament to his handlerís abilities and his own superb nature that Boumani carried it off." Slated by the antis for "cruelty" to rabbits, Charlie Jacoby asks: "Surely it would be more cruel not to let the cheetah catch rabbits? The fish you had with your chips last night was certainly gutted while it was still alive, your shoe leather would be happier as a cow and that rabbit was never going to die in its bed surrounded by its grandchildren. The hunting ban supporters claim to have 'saved the lives' of the 250 hares a year that British coursing clubs killed before the ban. I can take you on shoots where 250 hares in a single day is not uncommon. As a nation, we have become detached from the element of cruelty that exists in all our lives and we have become easily led into muddleheaded thinking by anti-fieldsports campaigners." For free-use high-res pictures, visit www.fieldsportschannel.tv/joomla/index.php/press-photos |
