Postscript
Dr Nincompoop
Patrick Marnham
Faced with a nil-profits situation the Sunday Times is resorting to desperate measures. Readers of last week's page two found themselves face to face with the pic- ture of a cat. 'I'm Gangaili Blueberry', read the caption. 'I'm an Oriental Spotted Tab- by and I was one of 2,000 pets competing in the National Cat Club Show in London yesterday'. Oh really. Could this be the same newspaper that once humbled the mighty Distillers' group?
Worse was to follow. Recently the Sun- day Times magazine employed the televi- sion botanist David Bellamy to utter a few cliches about the worldwide threat to wildlife. If a newspaper wants readers' let- ters this is the easiest way to get them. Sure enough 12,000 readers wrote in to say that their hearts were as big as Bellamy's and wasn't it a shocking business? So last week Bellamy was wheeled on again to with his `four rules' for what people could do to help.
`You have a Greenham Common cold.'
On the screen Bellamy makes quite .na. impression. One sees this elderly, apelike figure dressed in a tracksuit making sudden inappropriate gestures a la Magnus Pyl‘_,e and holding forth in a squeaky adenoidal voice about the birds and the bees, and °IIc . assumes that he knows his subject. 0": does not mind the squeaky voice and the rompers because television is, finally, 6 medium for half-wits. Television's assume' tion about science is that science is toohal ing and obscure for the viewers so televisi.°11., scientists have to be physical freaks. Patrick Moore has his eyebrows, Magnus F'Yke has St Vitus's Dance, Bellamy is almost inane?' ble and so on. But one has to read Bel" lamy's four rules to understand why he Is s° perfect on television. Rule one is 'Never again buy any article madefrom any part of a wild animal or bird — and that includes bits of coral, sea shells etc.' In Africa thousands of lions are slt°t every year by cattle farmers trying to Pr°:, tect their herds. There is no reason at al; why the claws and mane should not be sal" as souvenirs. Hundreds of elephants are shot by game officials to protect croPs; What is to happen to the valuable ivory. Many ecologists are now convinced that the only way to stop elephants from het"n8 poached to near extinction is to make the ivory trade a state monopoly rather than Ir legal. If everyone were to follow Bellamy s rule one the proposal would be useless: It must be more than ten years since ecologia.ts first started successful experiments with, game ranching. Since then gazelle and eland and ostrich have all been farmed side by side with cattle as the only alternative toe l4,- terminating them. Sale of the meat an trophies has enabled farmers in Africa I.0 live with wildlife rather than shooting It out. Dr Bellamy would appear to be a little underinformed on this subject. Side by side with the Bellamy rumina- tions was a report from Brian Jackman °I1 the threat to the mountain gorilla; Jackman's conclusion was that the gorillas best chance lay in public concern, money for an anti-poaching squad, money for all education unit, and lots of tourists vilt°, would pay to crawl through the jungle and intrude on the solitude of the few remaining gorillas who have managed to avoid that contact with humans which so often proves fatal. Unlike Bellamy, Jackman knows Africa well, but I am no more convinced by his solution.
So far as 'the worldwide threat t° wildlife' is concerned there is probably only one generalisation which it is safe to make.
If there were fewer people, there would be more animals. Not many Sunday Times readers, let alone Africans, are prepared to act on this rule. So, rule one of the Spec- tator's guide to readers who care for wild- life is — `Do nothing to encourage this un- satisfactory television botanist to suppose that he has any influence at all.' His latest article ended, 'Ours is the voice of humani- ty and for the first time we are shouting in unison'. Wrong again, doctor.
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