Clause 8 - Tests for registration: utility and least suffering
Hunting Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman has clearly been listening throughout, and he is always courteous in his interventions. I am sorry to say that that is not true of some of his colleagues.
The data supplied were also compared against other data on butterflies. The analysis found that rare butterflies occur more frequently in grid squares containing woodland managed for hunting. An area of gorse managed by the Sinnington hunt in Yorkshire provides habitat for the last remaining colony of pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies in eastern England. In a letter to the land's owner, the charity Butterfly Conservation wrote:
''The Ravenswick Estate Company is to be congratulated for achieving what the rest of Yorkshire has failed to do.''
The management strategy was foxhunting.
Hunts are also managing some of Britain's most precious wildlife habitats, and several have voluntarily entered into site of special scientific interest management agreements with English Nature. Two examples are the Belvoir hunt in Leicestershire and the Woodland Pytchley in Northamptonshire. Hedgerows are also planted and protected by hunts and pro-hunting farmers, but a 1987 publication found that pro-hunting farmers had removed 35 per cent. fewer hedgerows than the average farmer. Some hedgerows are now protected by law, but that leaves about 80 per cent. unprotected. There are also grants for planting new hedges, and evidence suggests that pro-hunting farmers are particularly keen to take up those grants. Many now uncommon farmland species are dependent on hedges for their survival.